Four Plots
by Kaze-chan
Summary: **FINISHED** After the blue light claims Miaka and Tamahome, the four remaining seishi struggle to find the parts of themselves that disappeared with them, and take a slightly unexpected course..... Language, violence, and death included here. Semi-AU.
1. After the Blue Light

  
DISCLAIMER: Can someone think up a new way to say one doesn't own Fushigi Yugi? I'm stuck on that problem myself.   
AUTHOR'S NOTES II: This story is different from most of my other writings. This one's a lot more serious, a lot less of a comedy, although I couldn't resist a touch of it here and there. I'm trying different styles and seeing what I come up with, and this one's proved interesting.   
This story takes place immediately (read: only a few hours) after Miaka and Tamahome are taken back to the real world by Yui's second wish to Seiryu and events that happen in the following days/weeks. Spoilers for basically the entire series in effect here.   
This fic features male relationships, but they are not romantic. They're companions, friends, sometimes even surrogate brothers, but there's no shounen ai. Nothing in this fic should be taken for shounen ai, because that certainly wasn't my intention. I just wanted to show the seishis' relationships at a point where the series shifts views to Miaka and Tamahome, and add a small idea of my own in.   
And I know this fic can negate some of the main series and a chunk of the OVA, but I'll take care of that, don't worry ^_~   
Caution: the viewpoint changes several times, and always remains in the first person, but I think it's fairly easy to tell who takes up the narrative. At least, I think I made it easy to tell… if I didn't, let me know, and I'll try to fix it! (By the way, for some reason I seem to work best with Chichiri and Mitsukake on this one, so I'm sorry if the Tasuki and Hotohori parts are a bit lackluster.)   
Rated for violence, language, and death.   
And, as usual, please review. I want to know how this new style of mine is taken in.   
  


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I dismissed the messenger with a wave of my hand, waiting until he'd left the room to slump in my throne, mussing my heavy formal robes and knocking my crown askew, a heavy lock of dark brown hair escaping and falling in my eyes. Even before the man had come, I had known something was wrong: their life forces had vanished, not in death as Nuriko's and Chiriko's had, but simply disappeared. There was nothing. Not even an emptiness really, more like nothing had ever been there. In a way it was worse than the death pain. I had felt this once before, though not nearly so strongly, near the very beginning, when Tamahome, Nuriko, and I had sent Miaka back to her world. I could only pray that the same thing had happened this time…   
I heard the door give a muted squeak of protest as it swung open. I glanced up, making a note to have somebody fix the door, and smiled as I saw my wife's lovely face appearing in the room. "Heika? Are you all right?" She pushed the door open the rest of the way and moved inside, regarding me with her large, warm, concerned eyes. "One of the guards came to tell me a message had come through."  
I stood up and stepped off the dais, letting the crown fall to the floor like unwanted garbage, walking forward to embrace her tightly. "Miaka and Tamahome have vanished."   
Houki blinked in surprise, her eyes wide. "What? Did Miaka return to her world again? Did Tamahome go with her? Was anyone hurt? Morale will be low-"   
I silenced her flood of questions with a quick kiss and a smile. She certainly wasn't an idiot, my empress. "Don't worry, love. Yes, I think they went back to Miaka's world, although I don't know for sure. But... I think they're fine. Tamahome will protect her."   
Houki smiled briefly. "Then I'll go have the scribes begin on a message to the commanders in the field. No reason to let the population at large know, they have enough to worry about for the time being." She gently kissed my cheek and left the room as quietly as she had come.   
I let myself drop the façade. I hated to act with her like I did with my most boring courtiers, hiding my feelings and my self, but she had enough to worry about with the early stages of pregnancy. I couldn't let her know how sad and alone I suddenly felt, as if a part of me had been ripped away. And part of me had, the connection I'd had with my miko and fellow seishi.   
And why in the world did I suddenly feel like there was something I should be doing?   


  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
The three of us – Chichiri, Mitsukake, and myself – managed to get back to the palace that night, rather than sleep on the battlefield. The day had taken its toll on us, and even the stoic healer was showing signs of cracking under the strain. I felt it, and I knew they did too, as if part of our beings had vanished in that blaze of blue light that had suddenly claimed Tama and Miaka.   
We dismounted in the stables, giving the tired animals to the hostlers. I was envious of the creatures; they would sleep infinitely better than we would.   
"Fuck it all," I muttered under my breath, lacking even the will to curse. Chichiri placed a sympathetic hand on my shoulder and the three of us made our way over to the throne room.   
Hotohori was there alone, looking as worn as we felt. I wondered how he'd managed to hold up under all his "important" meetings and was glad I didn't have his job. When bandits felt things, then screamed and yelled and cursed and maybe tore down a wall, but there was a release. Hotohori had to be calm at all times. I knew I could never do it.   
We knelt respectfully, then began to stand, but he waved at us to keep sitting. I fell back to the floor gratefully, closing my eyes, exhausted beyond words. There was a rustle of heavy cloth next to me, and I glanced over to see the grand emperor of Konan, in full imperial dress, collapsing to the floor as part of our little circle. Somehow it seemed right. At that moment he was not a ruler, and I was not a bandit. We were all just seishi trying to cope with a loss.   
Chichiri took off his mask and sighed. "If only we had our powers…"   
"Damn that Seiryu no Miko. Damn you, Nakago…" I trailed off. There didn't seem to be words to express what I wanted to say, and they all knew what I meant anyway. "So what do we do now?"   
No one answered. None of us had any idea.   
"Well…" Hotohori said after a minute, "there is still a war. We have to be strong and keep fighting."   
"Easy for you to say," I muttered. No one heard me though.   
"We… You have to go back. My ministers have forbidden me from going out… I wish I could join you. You're seen as symbols of the country now… of Konan courage…" For once, the emperor didn't seem to have anything to say. He was fumbling for words like I did at times, acting more like a normal human being than I'd seen him act for awhile.   
Maybe that's why I felt all right touching him. I placed one hand on his shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze. "I'll go back."   
"I will too no da."   
"So will I." Mitsukake had an unusual fervor in his voice, and we all glanced at him. There was something on his face… "I'm a doctor. If I have to fight to prevent suffering, I will." That was it. He was more determined than I'd ever seen him. I was silently grateful. He was a giant of a man and no puny fighter. I'd gained much respect for him that day, watching him drive back the enemy, wounding only when necessary.   
"Thank you, everyone." I let go of the emperor's shoulder and watched him stand, almost smiling as he tried to uncrease his robe and dust it off. Almost. "I must go, apparently there are more pressing matters to my counsel than the disappearance of the miko and a seishi." He nodded in the direction of the door, and I noticed an attendant of one of his councilors was loitering nearby. "Oyasumi."   
We returned his farewell as he walked out the door. The three of us stood up as well, brushing off our clothing. Chichiri fixed the mask on his face again, hiding the jagged scar. I ran a hand through my hair. I needed to go somewhere. Anywhere. Anywhere peaceful, where the war couldn't reach.   
"I'm going to tend to the wounded, I'll be in the infirmary if you need me." Mitsukake's deep voice cut through my thoughts but barely registered. I was aware of him leaving the room, but it didn't seem to matter. Abruptly I turned on my heels and walked out the other door in the direction of the gardens, leaving Chichiri alone in the solemn room.   


  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
I watched them both go, the young one, the one with the temper to match his hair, and the elder, the stolid, stoic, gentle giant, and couldn't decide which to follow. Both of them were hurting severely, as I was, as Hotohori-sama was. However, both heika and I had developed masks, not in the same way, but we could check our emotions until it was safe to release them. Tasuki definitely couldn't. I wasn't sure if Mitsukake could; the man had been through so much, but he hadn't seemed to really recover from it. The brief smiles, the occasional laughs, all had hinted at a much happier nature… yet he was still so separated, so hidden. Much like myself.   
I shook my head. "No da, Hou Jun, just pick one and follow him." I needed to talk to someone. No, I needed someone to talk to me. I had to be reassured of my role as the anchor when I felt the ground beneath my feet crumbling away ever quicker and quicker. If I lost that purchase, I didn't know what would happen.   
I blindly made a choice and stepped out into the night, thinking I would talk with whomever I met first. I wandered aimlessly for a few minutes, through courtyards, around the verandas of buildings… somehow ending up outside the shrine to Suzaku. I laughed bitterly. All our troubles, it seemed, had begun there, where Amiboshi had been revealed… if we had been more careful, we would have known... and Nuriko and Chiriko would not be dead, and Konan would be safe, and Miaka and Tamahome would be here. But nothing in our lives had ever been that simple, and I doubted they ever would be.   
I glanced around and saw the entrance to what had become known as the "seishi garden." It had once been one of Hotohori-sama's private gardens, but he had opened it to the seishi and their guests when we had all been assembled, back when we thought Amiboshi was Chiriko. I knew what I would find there. I turned down the path, the only noises being the soft falls of my feet and the quiet jingling of the rings of my staff. It seemed an assuring, familiar noise at the moment, one of few.   
The flowers in this garden were beautiful, as they were everywhere in the palace. There were one or two small ponds, teeming with carp, which I glanced into. My reflection glanced back at me, and for a minute I studied it. Miaka hadn't been far off when she'd called me "kitsune-san", all that time ago. The mask resembled one of the natural tricksters more than I'd originally thought. And what was I if I wasn't mysterious as a fox?   
A few more minutes brought me to the loveliest spot in the garden, the very center. The pond there was filled by a small artificial waterfall that I'd never been able to figure out, and ringed by pungent blossoms. We'd all liked spending time there, liked having a quiet place to relax every once in awhile.   
And there, right next to the pond, he lay. We'd brought him back to the palace from the monastery in Sairou. Mitsukake had used his marvelous water to rejuvenate him, making him look as if he was only sleeping peacefully. He had been too young. Only thirteen. He hadn't understood yet the ways of the world, hadn't felt the despair and loss the rest of us had. Yet he had been willing to die to protect his friends. His small grave was always kept neat, and there was a simple headstone with his name marked in it. Someone had set up a small shrine, including a bowl filled with sand to hold incense, and a candle in a tall jar that was never allowed to go out. I removed my mask, gently leaning it against the base of the shrine. I lit a stick of incense and put it in the sand, then knelt next to the flame-haired bandit and bowed my head, quietly chanting the prayer for the dead.   
"Ne, Chichiri…" he said quietly as I finished, "what are you going to do?"   
I blinked at him, surprised. "I… don't know. I won't give up. They wouldn't want me to." I looked up at the sky, finding our constellations. "I know Tamahome and Miaka are alive, just… unreachable."   
"Doesn't make it hurt any less, does it?"   
I laughed once, mirthlessly. "Iya. No one likes having part of you just go like that."   
"No, they don't." Tasuki gently pressed down the earth of a disturbed place on Chiriko's grave, giving it back its uniform look.   
"Tasuki, why did you come out here?" I asked softly.   
The thief sighed and sat back on his heels, not looking at me, only at the mound in front of him. Long moments passed before he spoke. "I guess… I thought he'd know what to do." His mobile mouth twisted into a humorless smirk. "Stupid, right? He can't tell us what to do anymore. He's gone."   
"Tasuki…"   
"Sometimes I wonder. Why did I wait so long? Why'd it have to be when he was dying that I realized how important he was? The little brother I never had, and so smart. He could've really been something, unlike me." He choked back a sob, but kept going. "He was too young for this. He was just a kid! Why'd Suzaku have to pick him?" The tears spilled from his eyes, and he didn't try to stop them. "Damn destiny…"   
I put a comforting arm around his shoulders, at that moment feeling like a brother myself. I waited a few moments, giving him time, before speaking gently. "But he was happy. And he was proud of his destiny. He fought that monster inside him on his own. He wanted to protect us." I pulled a square of cloth out of a pocket and handed it to him. "He was brave. Braver than we'd ever thought. I'm glad I met him. He taught us so much."   
Tasuki used the cloth to dry his tears, then lifted my arm off his shoulder and sat up straight, in control of himself again. "Yeah, I am too… thanks, Chichiri."   
I smiled slightly. "That's my job, right? Keep your hot head in line."   
He laughed a little, and I knew he'd be all right. "Yeah, someone has too… hey."   
"Hai?"   
"Do you think he's lonely?"   
I looked around, seeing the moon reflected in the rippling water, tiny birds fluttering from flower to flower, gathering the nectar. The entire atmosphere abounded with peace, something in short supply just outside the walls of the palace. "I don't know. I don't think I could ask for a nicer place to be buried, though." An image flashed through my mind as Tasuki nodded in agreement with my thought. Snow, rocks, blood, and a single staff of wood… "I would think," I began quietly, "the one who would be lonely would be Nuriko."   
Tasuki's eyes widened in surprise, but almost immediately went back to normal. "Hai… he didn't deserve to be left up there, where no one knew him."   
"It was where he performed his greatest deed," I replied quietly.   
"But not where he'd lived his life, damnit." He rocked back to balance on the balls of his feet, crouching to the ground and playing with some pebbles from the path. "That was here. I know if I die tomorrow-" he said this with a remarkably straight face, in calm acceptance of the fact that with his powers gone, he was much more likely to die "-I'd want to be buried here or at Mt. Reikaku. It's not right for him to be away from everything, even if it was his 'greatest deed.'"   
I nodded. "Maybe…"   
"What?"   
"We can ask Hotohori-sama if we can go back, after all this is over, and bring him back here."   
"Do you think he'd say yes?"   
"He'd probably lead the party himself."   
Tasuki chuckled. "Yeah. Probably. Shit, if only your powers still worked, we could go up now."   
I considered carefully. Was I right to raise his hopes like this? But I pushed aside my inhibitions and spoke. He deserved to know. "We might be able to in a day or so."   
"What?!"   
"Don't say anything, I want to try something first." I stood up, bowing to the shrine, then picked up my mask and fixed it on my face again. "Are you coming with me?"   
He glanced at me, then back at the grave, and shook his head. "Iya. I don't want him to be lonely."   
I smiled. The boy really did have a good heart. "All right. Good night, Tasuki."   
"Night." He settled back into a sitting position again as I headed off in the direction of the infirmary.   


  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
There were too many wounded. Countless too many. The limited number of doctors and helpers were doing their best, working their hardest to help every person they could, and I willingly joined into the fray with the batch of medicines I had brought from my room. I soon became too absorbed in my patients to even remember why I'd hurt before. Doctoring had that effect on me. Despite my relatively young age I was a better doctor than the wizened old man who was tending to a broken leg; maybe my seishi powers had had something to do with it. But those were gone now. I dared not even use the holy water I'd been given, in fear of finding its powers gone and having given false hope. Instead I set sprains, sewed stitches, and slipped small sedatives in my patients' water, just as I had before I found my power, and even oftentimes after. It seemed I doctored myself as well; most people didn't know just how therapeutic helping others could be.   
"Need any more help, Mitsukake no da?" His staff jingled as the masked monk knelt next to me as I tended my next patient. "It looks like I'm free for a bit. I can be your assistant no da, I know something about healing."   
I nodded, not looking away from the difficult stitching, glad of any helper, especially one who wouldn't waste precious time asking questions. "Hai, thank you Chichiri." I glanced up at the young woman, Emiko, who was kneeling next to the hurt man, holding together the flaps of skin on either side of the wound to his torso. "Would you please go find more clean cloths? We're running low."   
"Yes, doctor." She stood and bowed quickly, then took off at an almost-run for the storerooms. Without being asked, Chichiri leaned his staff against the wall and knelt where she had been, holding shut the wound so I could stitch it. Good. My little test was working.   
"Ne, Mitsukake…" he began when I was almost finished.   
"Yes?" I put in the last stitch and tied a quick, firm knot in my thread.   
"I was talking with Tasuki earlier, and we had an idea." His hands free for the moment, he took off his mask and set it next to his staff, stretching a little. "What would you say to bringing Nuriko here and… giving him a proper burial?"   
I blinked, my face blank, taking it in and considering it. "It… seems right, somehow." I glanced up at him again. "With Chiriko?"   
He nodded. "Hai. At least he'd be here, not alone in the snow…"   
I nodded as well, looking down again, feeling tears come unbidden to my eyes. There they were, two of my three great failures. Four. Shoka had been the first and the second, when I had arrived too late and when I had killed her – _no, freed her_ – with my own power. Then Nuriko… again, I had been too late, far too late to save my fallen comrade. Only moments had passed between the time his ki had slipped away and when our little group had arrived, but it was still an eternity… if I had only walked faster, ran, then I would have…   
And Chiriko. The most recent scar, and the most painful because he had died willingly. While my power had freed Shoka from the demon, there was nothing I could do about the monster possessing the little boy. He had been so brave, taking his own life to save ours, but I could not forget the feeling of absolute helplessness that had come over me as I knelt next to him, trying to be brave and smile for his sake, as he lay dying, dying a death he did not deserve, dying too early, and too selflessly. He had refused my help, saying I would only heal the monster inside him as well, and I suppose he was right, but it still hurt. All of those times I had forced myself to be strong, help the others, just as my training dictated, but when I was alone those wounds were opened, and I cried the tears I couldn't let the world see.   
"Mitsukake, are you all right?"   
I felt Chichiri's eye on me and quickly blinked away the unspilled tears, reaching for a roll of bandages before looking up. "Yes. Give me a hand here."   
Chichiri nodded and helped the mercifully unconscious man to sit up, giving me room to roll the bandages tightly around him, putting slight pressure on the wound. He would be fine, given time to rest.   
I didn't know if I would be.   
I forced myself to turn away from those thoughts as Chichiri gently set the man down again and the two of us moved on to our next patient, a woman with a severely broken leg. A civilian. There were innocent people being hurt and killed in this senseless war, brought on only by the Kutou emperor's lust for power and land and- I made myself stop again. Being raging mad at a man in another country would not help this woman.   
Chichiri and I knelt next to her. Her slow, shallow breathing indicated that one of the aides had given her a sleeping powder. Good, she wouldn't feel much pain then. We began the grim task of resetting the leg.   
"Have you told Hotohori about your idea?" My question startled him. Chichiri blinked and shook his head, concentrating on the woman. "We probably should tonight… it will take a long time to prepare for the trip."   
"We won't be going the slow way if I can help it." Chichiri picked up a sturdy wooden rod lying on the women's pallet and held it against her leg, as I did the same on the other side, and we passed the bandage back and forth, binding the splint in place. It would do until we had better supplies.   
"We can't go any other way. You no longer have your powers." I checked the bandaging again, making sure the rods wouldn't slip out on accident.   
He chuckled softly, a sound that somehow made me feel better despite the multitude of injury around us. "You forget, I'm still a monk. And a disciple of one very hard-headed lady."   
"Ahh… planning on asking Taiitsu-kun, aren't you?"   
"Why not?" His lone eye twinkled with some private joke. "The worst she can do is set the nyan nyans on me."   
"And here I was left thinking that was a punishment worse than death sometimes."   
Chichiri chuckled again and we continued with our rounds.   


  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
I knelt in my room before the mirror, hands folded together in an intricate prayer sign, chanting so quietly I could barely hear myself. My powers were gone, yes, but the link with my teacher should still be there. This was the only spell I could work as a normal man, and it wasn't even much of a spell at that. I simply focused all my thoughts on Taiitsu-kun and said a special chant, and hoped she'd happen upon it over the link sooner or later. If or when she did, she would be able to contact me through the mirror. The trick was having her receive my message in the first place. If she were asleep, or occupied with something else, there was a million to one chance against my contacting her.   
But luck, which hadn't been with us all day, finally appeared, in the form of something it took me well over a year to get accustomed to: Taiitsu-kun's face. And it was not happy.   
"Chichiri! What in the name of the gods do you think you're doing contacting me NOW?! Do you realize just how I woke up?!"   
I winced. "No, sensei. Gomen nasai."   
"You better be. And expect to be woken up the same way one of these days!"   
I didn't want to know. And I'd find out soon enough, anyway, Taiitsu-kun always kept her promises. "Gomen nasai, sensei, but I have an important request. It couldn't wait."   
She sighed and settled back, seeming to calm down somewhat. "Somehow I knew you'd say that. What do you four want?"   
I didn't question the fact that she knew it was for all us seishi; she was Taiitsu-kun, after all. "We… We'd like to go to Hokkan. To Mt. Black." She remained silent, looking at me directly. "To retrieve Nuriko's body," I finished softly, looking down at the floor.   
"Do all of you want this?"   
I didn't look up. "Mitsukake, Tasuki, and I do. Hotohori-sama doesn't know about it yet, but I'm sure he would as well."   
"Why do you want to do this?" Her voice, normally harsh and ragged, seemed to become gentler. Softer, somehow.   
My face twisted in a wry smile at the floor. "We're being selfish, I guess. With Miaka and Tamahome… gone like that, we're all feeling empty. I think we'd feel more complete if we had all the seishi at least nearby, even if they aren't living. And…"   
"And?" she gently prompted after a moment of silence.   
"We think Nuriko might be lonely." I sighed. "He's up there where no one knows him, without his friends or family or anything familiar."   
"It was where he died valiantly."   
"I said something like that, too. Do you know what Tasuki said to that? 'But not where he lived his life, damnit.' He's right. Nuriko was here in life. He should be in death." I ran out of words, still not looking up, staring instead at the grain of the wood floor and my hands, still clasped in the prayer sign, keeping the link between us open. They were starting to quiver slightly with the effort, and with the emotions I was trying to repress ineffectively. I could feel the tears start to gather, even in my scar-closed eye.   
"Ri Hou Jun, look at me." The surprise of hearing my real name, the name none of the other seishi had ever heard or could guess at, drew my gaze back to my teacher quickly. My surprise grew when I saw her watching me with a sad, comprehending smile. "You all miss him very much, and Chiriko as well, don't you?"   
I nodded, for some reason unable to speak.   
"Except that Chiriko is there with you. You feel better having him near." It wasn't a question, but I nodded again. "It's only to be expected that you'd feel the same about Nuriko… All right. The day after tomorrow I will open a small portal for you four to go through, and bring Nuriko to Konan. You must prepare yourselves for the weather and ice, there have been some storms in Hokkan since you were there. You'll only have a limited time, so you must work quickly."   
I bowed to her, still kneeling and holding the prayer sign, my pale blue bangs touching the floor gently. "Arigato gozaimasu sensei, we won't waste the chance."   
"I know you too well to know you won't." Her reflection began to fade.   
"Sensei, wait!" I cried, having just realized the fact that I didn't know one fairly important thing. Her image flickered back into focus and remained that way, looking slightly perturbed, which I ignored. "How will we know when you've opened the portal for us?"   
She grinned wolfishly. "You'll know. Believe me, you'll know."   
"Should I flee the country now or later?"   


  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
The day began much too early, as usual. All I wanted was to spend a few more quiet moments lying next to my wife, studying her face, re-memorizing her features, trying to figure out how I could have been so lucky to be married to her. But advisors seem to multiply like flies around honey, and only moments after I'd awoken I was pulled from my bed by one of them, a new one whose name I didn't remember. I sent him out of the room while I donned the imperial robes, making light work of the heavy task with the ease of practice. Houki let out a small groan as I fixed my hair under the crown, turning over onto her stomach and pulling the blankets over her head. "It's too early to be up…" I heard her mumble.   
I hid a laugh and walked back over to the bed, the heavy velvet swishing around me quietly, and sat down carefully next to her. "Go back to sleep, you need your rest. At least one member of the Imperial family should be able to sit through a court session without hiding yawns."   
"Good, 'cause I'm going to," came the muffled reply.   
"Whatever you want." I pulled back the blankets just long enough to kiss her cheek, then re-tucked them around her head, making her giggle. So sweet, so loving… I sighed again and left our chambers, preparing myself for a long day.   
The new advisor jumped on me outside with his papers, demanding my attention before I'd gotten all the way through the door. I schooled my face into a polite Yes-I'm-really-paying-attention-to-your-fascinating-jabber expression and walked to the main council room, next to the throne room, the jabbering man following. I nodded politely to him at the door to the room and he grinned – obviously he had not been at court long – and left. I could picture him skipping for joy, maybe bursting out into song, and hid another laugh at the ridiculous scene playing in my mind, opening the door and entering the chamber.   
"Hotohori-sama, we need to talk to you." When my eyes adjusted to the light I could see Tasuki, Chichiri, and Mitsukake standing or sitting in the room, all watching the door with solemn looks.   
I dropped the false expression I had been wearing. There was no need for it with, aside from Houki, the only friends I had left. "Why?"   
Tasuki and Mitsukake both looked at Chichiri, who glanced at the two of them before stepping forward. "Tomorrow we're going to Hokkan. To get Nuriko. Would you like to come?"   
I blinked, startled momentarily into silence, then sat carefully in a chair, debating. There was no question on if I wanted to go, but could I? Could I escape the court and the emperor's duties long enough? It would be many weeks before we returned, and I couldn't be sure the country would survive. The emperor wasn't simply the most prominent figure of a great government, he was the one who prevented internal power struggles simply with his presence. If he were to go… and during a time of war…   
Startling me once again, the monk seemed to read my thoughts. "We wouldn't be gone long, Hotohori-sama. We'd return before lunch. Taiitsu-kun has agreed to open a portal for us since I don't have my powers any more." His unmasked face looked at me seriously. "And truthfully, we could use another pair of hands. And your sword."   
I suppressed a shudder that threatened to run up my spine. Hokkan… Nuriko's resting place… Sometimes I wondered what would have happened had I been there. But it was too painful, thinking he might be alive if my advisors had been wise enough to see that the combined power of the seishi might be needed. I couldn't think that way for long…   
"Yes," I heard myself say, almost without knowing it was my own voice. "I'm coming, too." I didn't know when, or how, or what would happen, but I knew I would see.   
With my friends.   
  


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AUTHOR'S NOTES II: Well? How's it going? I know that was long, I just couldn't seem to stop it until that part. There are about three or four more chapters to go, although I don't know if they'll be as long as this one. They might be, I think I want to play around with imaging some more in them.   
Eh heh… Sorry about the slight Hotohori/Houki fluff-sap, but I kind of wanted to make the point that he DID love her, and she loved him. There are so many stories out there where he just marries her because she looks like Nuriko that I couldn't help myself. Houki is her own separate wonderful character. Maybe if I get a good idea for her I'll write a fic for her (notice how I pull out the characters people don't seem to think about at times? Am I weird or what? But I have FUUUUN!)   
GAH! Sorry for being not-so-perky, I'm running on severe lack of sleep and nerves on plus ten… Eeeeeeeee! Anyway, let me know how I did, and watch for chapter 2 soon! I am basking in the glow of reviews! Bask bask bask… waaaarm……   



	2. Fields of White

Four Plots - Part 2 - Fields of White   
DISCLAIMER: Same thing   
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Part two! It's here! Yay yay yay! And Tasuki and Hotohori finally came to me, YES!   
On a MUCH happier note..... THE FIFTH GRAPHIC NOVEL IS OUT! YES YES YES YES! It's got the really cool pic of Yui as the Seiryu no Miko and Nakago's profile as the background on the cover. I need money desperately, I need to buy the two seasons (I already own the OVAs) so I can stop borrowing them from my friend, and so I can buy the rest of the manga! Money!!!!!!   
I wish they'd get something up on the categories thing about "sad". "Angst" is good, but this isn't really angst-y... I don't think anyway. Oh well. This chapter has bad language, and again the thing about male relationships applies.   
Now stop listening to me babble and READ!   
PS-- Jet-puffed marshmellows make some really funky shapes when squashed right.   
PPs-- (added five days after original notes) I now own some real chopsticks! I'm eating grapes with them right now. Happy Kaze-chan:o) AND THANK GODS FF.N'S BACK UP!   
  


*************************************************************************************

  
  
I found out all too soon what Taiitsu-kun had meant.   
"CHICHIRI-SAMA!" A mass of tiny, incredibly perky girls with blue hair and large eyes abruptly popped out of the air above my bed at near dawn the next day, then just as abruptly fell on me.   
"ITAIIIIII NO DA!" I yelled, being squashed beneath the babbling little things. Nyan nyans were fine one or two at a time, sometimes even five, but this many.... All at once... And all of them climbing all over me!   
"Chichiri-sama! Chichiri-sama!" "It's been a long time!" "Why don't you come to Mt. Taikyoku anymore?" "CHICHIRI-SAMA, SHE TOOK MY CANDY!"   
"GET OFF ME NO DA!" I started throwing nyan nyans left and right, not worrying about hurting them because they simply bounced off whatever they hit and landed on the floor. Once they were off, they took the hint and stayed off. However, they began climbing all over everything else, grabbing at my possessions, tugging the staff off the dresser, pulling open the drawers and inspecting the few contents. Many things that weren't even mine, but had been placed there for decoration, were flying across the room.   
I did _not_ want to have to pay for all that. "NYAN! PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER NO DA!"   
The identical little girls all looked at me as one, blinked as one, and again as one began to glow with a pinkish light, swirled through with blue streaks. There was a near-blinding flash of light, and when I blinked my eye clear, there was one girl standing in the middle of the floor, my mask in her hands, grinning. "Gomen nasai, Chichiri-san, they're harder to control when they're excited." She held out the mask helpfully to me.   
I groaned. I should have known what my sensei had meant. Being woken up by Nyan's many, identical, untactful, um, sections would put anyone in a bad mood. And having them be excited to see me after so long would make them almost impossible to corral. I muttered under my breath while I accepted the mask and fixed it on. I turned and gave Nyan a look, and she grinned again as she left the room, giving me privacy in which to dress.   
I hurriedly pulled on my clothes, the same outfit I'd worn nearly every day since becoming a monk. I absently took note of the fact that I might have to get something new to wear soon, dragged my fingers through my bangs, and braced myself. "You can come back, Nyan no da."   
The door burst open and Nyan ran in again, throwing herself on me and hugging me tightly, and I hugged her back. While her apparently-six-year-old counterparts could be very annoying, seemingly-eleven-year-old Nyan was almost normal, considering she lived with Taiitsu-kun. In my months at Mt. Taikyoku she'd become a good friend, almost like a sister. "Nyan, what are you doing here no da?"   
She pulled back, smiling, and sat on my bed. "You're going to Hokkan today."   
I felt a cloud pass over my face, even under my mask, remembering our task, and simply nodded. She continued, sympathy evident in her voice, but talking calmly. "You no longer have your powers. I'm going to keep the portal open for you, and be on watch."   
I nodded again, looking up at the door to my room, grimacing slightly at the thought of waking everyone up this early. "Is the portal open now?" I saw her sky-blue head nod out of the corner of my eye. "It won't stay open for long, will it?" Again her head moved, answering no this time. I sighed. "Just keep out of the way, Tasuki doesn't like being woken up." I heard her muffle a giggle and jump off the bed as I took up the staff and opened the door to my room, preparing to lead everyone to our grim task.   
  


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
I hadn't been able to sleep well that night. Dreams kept coming to me, dreams of should-haves and might-have-beens, much worse than before, perhaps because I knew that today I'd have to face my failure. Face Nuriko... one of the faces that haunted my dreams. Never accusing, no, not him, and not Shoka or Chiriko either. They were always forgiving, telling me I had done my best, or I had saved them, or... but I couldn't see it that way, I knew I had failed them. I had failed them, and they were dead.   
I was sitting in the solitary chair in my room, my elbow propped on the arm of the chair and my head balanced on my fist, staring into the pre-dawn darkness and thinking. I couldn't really do much else besides sit there; for some reason moving in and of itself was almost impossible. I smiled grimly at the irony: the doctor didn't know what was wrong with himself. Appropriate, in a way.   
A soft tapping and a familiar jiggle reached my ears, and I managed to pull myself out of the chair. The floor was cold beneath my bare feet, a sure sign of the approaching winter. I pulled open the door to find Chichiri, dressed for cold weather in the coat he'd worn the last time in Hokkan, and an adolescent girl with sky-blue hair waiting for me, both with stoic expressions on their faces. I gave Chichiri a questioning look, and he nodded quietly. I returned the nod and shut the door, quickly getting dressed and finding my own coat. I stepped out of the room a few moments later to find them still there, Chichiri leaning against the wall and the girl sitting on the railing. They both looked up at the noise of the door opening, the same emotionless expressions on their faces. I could feel my own face settling into its familiar unresponsive set, as if preparing itself to hold back a flood of emotion. "Let's go."   
  


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
I thought it would rain. At least, my mind told me the echoing noise was thunder, but as I emerged from my dream-state I realized someone was knocking on my door. I groaned and pulled the covers over my head, much as Houki had the day before. "Can I never sleep?"   
"Hotohori-sama, it's us no da." Chichiri's voice was muted, repressed. I blinked as the remembrance of our task came rushing back to me, waking me further. I stood up quickly, walking over to my closet, and found my "simple" outfit: my practice clothes, the white shirt, red ankle-length tunic, dark pants, and simple boots. The same outfit I'd worn when travelling with Miaka and Nuriko to find the other seishi, all that time ago, and yet not so long. It seemed appropriate to wear it, somehow.   
I wrapped my hair into a tail down my back, knelt next to the bed and kissed my sleeping wife on the temple, reluctant to wake her. I hoped she'd remember our talk the night before, about what the four of us would do today, and wouldn't worry when she woke and found me gone. She'd agreed with what we were to do. Houki had known Nuriko somewhat from the harem and had respected "her", even with "her" tendency to keep "herself" separated from the other members. She agreed it was proper that he be brought back to his own place.   
I left her, sleeping gently, to join my friends outside the room. I was slightly taken aback to see a girl who resembled the nyan nyans from Mt. Taikyoku, only older and more in control. I suppose the surprise registered on my face, because she bowed, smiling at me. "Hotohori-sama, my name is Nyan. You know me better as the nyan nyans."   
"Nani? You mean, they're all you?"   
She nodded, then seemed to notice my clothing, surveying it critically. "It's cold up north. You need something more than that." I noticed Chichiri and Mitsukake, both unusually silent, were wearing thick coats. Nyan closed her eyes and chanted under her breath, holding her arms out in front of her. There was a small flash of pinkish light, and another thick coat dropped into her arms. She held it out to me, and I took it, inspecting it.   
It was a deep purple with white trim and a reddish sash. It looked strangely familiar. "Nyan, I think I've seen this before."   
"It's like Nuriko's, no da," Chichiri spoke up quietly. "The one he took with him to Hokkan."   
I nodded mutely, noticing for the first time the similarity between Chichiri's and Mitsukake's own coats. If I had gone to Hokkan, was this what I would have worn? Would I have been Nuriko's companion when they'd spilt up to search for the shinzaho? I pushed the thoughts out of my mind, feeling the guilt coming back in spades, and shrugged the coat on, belting it tightly. I was immediately much warmer and hoped I could take it off before I roasted to death. "Where to next?"   
"Tasuki." The tall healer nodded in the direction of Tasuki's room. "We left him for last to have less of a protest."   
"That was wise. Oh, baka!" Ignoring their startled looks about the fact that I had just called myself stupid, I ran back into my room to retrieve something I'd forgotten, and came out wearing my sword, the holy sword Taiitsu-kun had given to me. I might not have had the speed my seishi powers once gave me, but after training with the weapon for thirteen years, I was fairly certain I could still hold my own in a fight. I felt more comfortable having it with me in case anything should happen. If it did, I would be ready.   
  


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
"GO THE FUCK AWAY ALREADY!" I yelled at my door, yanking my pillow over my head and trying to stuff it in my ears.   
"Tasuki no da! Get up and GET OUT HERE!"   
"SHIT NO! If that witch can open it this early, she can KEEP it open!"   
"TASUKI!" Hotohori joined in. "I don't like it any more than you, but _we don't have a choice_!"   
"I'll get him!" chirped an unfamiliar young female voice. I didn't have time to figure out who it was before there was a flash of pinkish light I could see even through the pillow. And suddenly I was floating five feet in the air above my bed. "Tasuki-san! Time to wake up!"   
"_YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!_" I yelled, looking at the empty space between me and the bed, and flipped over to find that cursed chipper female voice's owner floating in midair next to me with a grin on her face. "_YAAAAAAA!!!_"   
"I think he's awake now," Mitsukake said dryly, opening the door and stepping into my room. "Nyan, you can set him down."   
"Hai!" She waved her hand and I fell the five feet to bounce on my bed.   
"Why the fuck did you do that?!" I yelled at her. "I need sleep, damnit!"   
The grin dropped from her face, and she looked at me seriously. "Do you really want to get Nuriko?"   
"Shit yeah, but not this early!"   
"This is the only time Taiitsu-kun can send you. Since Seiryu was called, her ability to help you, the Suzaku no shichiseishi, has been greatly reduced. If she sends you at any other time, you will be detected and stopped, and would most likely spin through the space between worlds forever." She kept that direct stare on me. "In other words, you would vanish, never to be heard from again. Now do you understand?"   
I squashed my response and simply nodded, hauling myself to my feet. "All right, out, I need to change." The girl vanished in the same pinkish light, and Mitsukake silently left and closed the door. I pulled on the clothes I'd worn the day before, which were the first things that came to hand, then started digging through my things, looking for my coat. It was cold in Hokkan, we'd learned that the hard way last time. In fact... my mouth twisted into an ironic smile as I remembered Nuriko, when we'd first gotten to the country, demanding I make a fire with my tessen, which I had repeatedly refused. In the end, he'd won, of course, and I'd stood there with a scowl on my face, fanning him with the gently burning tessen, him grinning like a little kid. He'd always known how to get what he wanted, he was always the one to complain of the cold first. And he'd been the one to stay there, freezing and bleeding to death in the snow that had seemed so clean… It wasn't right, it just wasn't.   
And we were going to fix it. We had to. We wanted to.   
I finally found my green coat, shoved in the back corner of a drawer in my dresser, as if I'd tried to hide the memories associated with it by hiding the coat itself. I pulled it on, tightening the sash around my waist, steeling myself for our upcoming task. My tessen was slung in its carrier on my back, the sword I'd been fighting with in the war since I'd lost my powers at my hip. I wouldn't be caught unprepared. I took a deep breath and stepped out of the room, ready to see my lost friend.   
  


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
The resemblance between Nyan and Chichiri struck me as I watched the girl chant, her hands folded in a prayer sign I knew I'd seen Chichiri use once or twice before, their hair almost the same color, even their facial expressions similar. I couldn't understand what Nyan was saying, but it sounded imperious, reminded me of a tone I myself had used on occasion. We were gathered in the courtyard in front of Tasuki's room, facing away from the sun which was just beginning to break over the horizon, ranged in a line behind the chanting girl. In front of her was a slowly widening hole in the air, a hole that glowed pinkish-blue with her power. It expanded inch by inch until it was tall enough to admit even Mitsukake comfortably, just touching the ground with its bottom edge.   
We four watched it with a mixture of awe and apprehension, sadness and determination, steeling ourselves for the crossing and what we would find on the other side. I glanced briefly down the line at my companions, saw the usual masks over Chichiri's and Mitsukake's faces, the grim determination on Tasuki's as his fist opened and closed. I myself was gripping the handle of my sword as a steady link to reality.   
Nyan's voice startled me when she spoke, using that same commanding tone in a language we all understood. "Go through quickly, I have to be last or it will close. Hurry!"   
We four glanced at each other, and I stepped forward, around Nyan, and slowly pushed my hand through the glowing hole. It didn't feel much different. The air felt a bit thicker than normal, but that was all. I reached in up to my shoulder and sucked in breath as the sudden cold hit my arm from the elbow upwards. The portal had worked. On the other side was the frozen wasteland on Mt. Black. I turned back to my fellow seishi. They were all watching me steadily, waiting for my reaction. I nodded at them, and stepped through entirely.   
The freezing wind hit me like a thousand knives as my body was freed from the thick air of the portal. I quickly changed my mind about the coat and pulled it tighter around me, cutting off a bit more of the biting wind. I stepped out of the way to give the others room to come through, taking my first look at the land of Hokkan.   
I had never been allowed to journey to the other countries, even before I was the emperor. There was always too great a risk of my being kidnapped, held for ransom, even killed. And once I assumed my duties as emperor, I had been too busy. I had held off the Kutou armies for two years before Miaka came by placing my own troops strategically and always being on guard. What met my eyes as I saw the first thing outside my realm was rocky fields of snow with great boulders sticking randomly through the clean white, and in front of me a great cliff with what seemed to be a closed door in it.   
A muffled curse drew my gaze back to the portal, to see Tasuki coming through, rubbing his arms to warm himself. "I forgot how cold it was." He looked around, seeming to remember things I'd never seen. He scowled at the door in the cliff, then turned his gaze to one of the rocks near it, one that was as flat as a wall on the side to us. He slowly walked to it and crouched down, balancing himself on one knee, and ran his fingers over the surface. His eyes closed and his head fell forward to rest against it. He was breathing deeply, as if he was trying not to cry.   
I didn't know what to do for him, but my attention was again taken by another figure coming through the portal. Mitsukake showed piece by piece, carrying a bag I knew held tools we'd brought for the mission. His expression grew slightly grimmer and the corners of his mouth quivered, like he was holding back strong emotions. He shook his head slightly and knelt to the side of the portal, opening the bag and digging through it, his face unreadable.   
Chichiri came next, with Nyan right behind him. The girl didn't seem to be affected by the cold, and neither did Chichiri. Chichiri silently bowed his head in respect for the deceased, and I copied his action, remembering I had yet to kneel next to the body of my fallen comrade.   
A large hand on my shoulder brought me back to the present. I looked up into Mitsukake's emotionally closed eyes. "We need to be quick." He looked to Chichiri and Nyan, as did I. The portal behind them was shrinking as slowly as it had widened. It wouldn't remain open for long.   
I took one more look around the white wasteland. Tasuki hadn't moved from his rock. The door drew my attention once again, and I pointed to it. "Is that where...?"   
The healer nodded. "The shinzaho." His voice was unusually thick with feeling. I understood. That door was what Nuriko had sacrificed himself to achieve, where Miaka had attained the Genbu shinzaho and met the two Genbu spirits. Miaka had confided that she'd had hopes of Nuriko's spirit remaining with them, as the warriors Hikitsu and Tomite remained in the cave, but that hadn't come to pass. All signs of the fatal fight had been obliterated by the frequent storms that passed through the heights frequently, but I almost thought I could see it in front of me. The wolf-man, the small yet strong warrior, I could almost see their ghosts, fighting to the death in order to live.   
"There it is." Chichiri's quiet phrase broke through my imaginings. The last of Nyan's portal vanished, and for the first time I could see the tip of a wooden staff poking through a mound of smooth, white snow. I knew instantly that was where Nuriko was.   
A silent figure in green passed by me, walking steadily to the mound, fire-tinted hair a blaze of color against the white. I followed, my head still bowed slightly, ready to see my friend.   
  


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
The staff we'd used as a marker was nearly buried. I hadn't thought of what two or three month's exposure to snow storms might do to the meager monument we'd been able to leave for him. I silently fell to my knees next to the mound and began to dig with my hands, calmly pushing away the snow, ignoring the bite of cold on my skin, simply determined to get him out of there and back home.   
A small shovel was pushed into the snow next to me. I looked up to Mitsukake's towering form, blocking some of the light filtering over the mountain peaks. I thought I saw him give me a small smile, but I couldn't be sure. He had a spade in hand, and he tossed the empty bag away, moving to the other side. I saw Hotohori, the last shovel in his hands, scooping up small heaps of snow and flinging them across the landscape with an almost feverish intensity. Chichiri stood at the head of the mound, his mask removed, his head bowed in prayer, with Nyan beside him in much the same posture. Around the girl, however, there appeared every once in awhile a blue spark of light. I wondered briefly what they were, until the snow began flying near where Mitsukake was. I grabbed the handle of the shovel, stood, and began to dig.   
_Hold on, buddy_, I thought to Nuriko. _We'll have you out of there soon, and you can be home again. You can be warm. Eh, never were one for the cold, were you? You can be with us again._   
After a few minutes of digging I felt my shovel hit something solid. I felt a sinking suspicion as to what it was, and hurriedly brushed away the snow about a hand span's width from where the shovel had hit. My own reflection, eyes wide and almost panicked, met me. I banged on the surface, but it didn't crack, didn't even shiver.   
"Shit. Ice storms," I muttered, then raised my voice. "Have you guys hit it yet?"   
A clunk answered me, as well as a muffled curse from Hotohori. "Ice. Why did it have to be ice?"   
"We didn't bring any picks," answered Mitsukake's muted voice.   
We'd gotten through about two feet of snow. It wasn't packed very hard on the top, and the three of us quickly removed the rest, exposing the dome of ice hiding Nuriko from us. The once smooth snow scape was now littered with clumps of snow that had exploded on impact and our own footprints. Chichiri and Nyan hadn't moved, and the blue sparks were still appearing sporadically. Two and a half feet of the wooden staff were clear before the ice started. I joined Hotohori and Mitsukake, trying to think of a way to get through this quickly.   
"I'm out of ideas," Hotohori said simply. He sounded exhausted and wearied, possibly as close to tears as I'd ever heard him. "I can't use my sword to get through this without my seishi powers."   
Mitsukake remained silent, his brow furrowed in thought, staring at the grave. Suddenly his eyes widened, and he looked at me. "Tasuki, your tessen."   
"Nani? I can't melt this stuff, I don't have my powers either."   
The healer shook his head. "No, you can break through the ice with it. It's stronger than anything else we have. Nothing can break diamond, so it should be able to chip through fairly quickly."   
I slowly reached behind me and drew the tessen, looking at it doubtfully. It might not break, but how thick was that ice? Any more than a finger's breadth and it would take forever to get through. But still... "I don't know what good it'll do, but I give it a try."   
They nodded at me, and took a step back. I treaded forward, holding the tessen like a dagger, trying to find the best possible place to strike. I bent forward, inspecting the ice, and finally found the spot where the snow beneath seemed clearer than anywhere else. I grabbed the hilt of the tessen in both hands and raised it above my head, hearing Hotohori gasp as if remembering something. I closed my eyes and plunged the tessen down as fast as I could, feeling the jolt run through my arms as it connected with the ice.   
I opened my eyes. The tip of the tessen was embedded in the ice now, about a third of the way through as far as I could tell. I reversed my grip and yanked it out, then knelt to inspect the hole, brushing away ice chips. A web of cracks radiated through the ice surrounding the hole for a good foot on either side, large near it and gradually getting narrower the further away it was. I stuck my finger in the hole and pulled it out quickly before frostbite could grab it. I really should have remembered gloves. "Looks like it's about three quarters of an inch thick."   
I thought I heard Mitsukake... sigh in relief? "That's better than I expected. How far did you get?"   
"About a third that far." I stood and again gripped the tessen. "Stay back." Again I raised it above my head and again brought it down. The hole expanded and the cracks raced further away as the ice chips flew. The tessen went in further that time, though still not all the way through. Again I struck, and this time heard the ice crack and shatter, felt the tessen plow into the soft snow beneath at least half a foot. I brushed the powder off the tessen and stuck it back in its carrier, ready to bash through the rest with my shovel.   
I heard the snow crunch under booted feet behind me, and a fist shot past me to strike the ice next to the hole I had created. The ice shattered and fell into the snow beneath, other pieces flying away so fast I turned to hide my face. When I looked back I saw the healer next to me, smiling at the mound. "This time," he said softly, "I'm going to do it."   
  


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
I couldn't break through the ice on my own. I watched as Tasuki repeatedly drove his tessen into the ice, chipping away steadily at the barrier between us and Nuriko, leaving me with a fresh bout of hopelessness. If I was truly strong, I could get through. This time, however, I simply knew that I could not do that. Nuriko was the seishi who would have been able to, Nuriko was trapped lifeless beneath the barrier. But I couldn't sit still either. When he'd broken through, I'd stepped up and simply plowed my fist through the ice, miraculously remaining unharmed by the ice slivers and destroying the shield for a foot on every side. Tasuki protected his face from the flying splinters, and I allowed myself to smile at the mound in front of me. For once I could do something right.   
Tasuki clearly didn't know what to make of my statement, but he understood about getting through the ice. He and Hotohori, who had watched all this silently, reclaimed their shovels and took position on either side of me, ready to swing on my command. I said nothing, simply punched again, higher up and nearer to the staff, and they swung with me. We hit in three different places, each destroying more and more of the ice. We fell out of rhythm, each of us hitting wherever and whenever we could, shattering more of the shield each time. I quickly found that even with my long reach I couldn't quite get to the top, and Hotohori took that job from me, using the length of the shovel's handle. We cleared about half the ice in bare minutes, avoiding the head of the mound where Chichiri and Nyan still stood. I assumed Nyan was protecting us from being discovered, but I still wasn't sure what Chichiri was doing. I made sure to stay away from him through, so he wasn't hit by the ice.   
A few minutes later most of the ice was gone, except for the section in front of Chichiri and Nyan. My hands had a couple of cuts on them, but they weren't bad. The bleeding had stopped almost as soon as it had begun and my movement wasn't impaired. I grabbed my spade and began to dig again.   
I called a halt when there was only two feet of snow from the top of the mound to the ground. "From here on in, we use our hands." Tasuki and Hotohori nodded, throwing aside their shovels, and knelt in the snow to bail out handfuls of the stuff. My spade joined their shovels in the snow, and I began throwing snow over my shoulder. The going was slower than with the shovels, but no one was willing to risk hitting Nuriko's unprotected body. We began on the edges, gradually moving in as we cleared the snow in the way, taking it off the top at the same time. The base of the mound shrunk from about seven feet long and five feet wide very quickly, becoming more Nuriko-sized every minute. And then, we were there.   
Hotohori saw him first. His face grew grim as he gently exposed one dark purple sleeve. Tasuki found his left foot, with a slipper of the same dark purple, and the end of a pair of light pink pants. I found the paleness of the bottom of his long shirt. We all bowed our heads momentarily in respect, then began clearing away the rest of the snow quicker than ever.   
The familiar jingle was suddenly cut off as Chichiri dropped his staff in the snow and knelt next to me, digging as fast as the rest of us. With four of us the going was faster than ever. It seemed bare moments later we were brushing off the snow from Nuriko's hands, pulling it out of his hair with our fingers.   
The cold, for once, had done us a service. The temperature, snow, and ice had preserved Nuriko's body so he looked the same he did his last day alive. His clothes still lay in the same folds they'd been in when he was buried. His purple hair, hacked short by his knife in the tavern in Toulan, fanned out around him, the shaggy cut reminding me of something else. I checked, and the bag with his cut hair still lay with him. His mouth was settled in a small smile. He radiated peace.   
I turned away, unable to control myself any longer, a tear slipping silently from my eye. Tasuki passed me as he walked up to Nuriko's head, kneeling next to him. I wiped away the tear and turned back. Hotohori was kneeling across from Tasuki. He had let himself go, crying silently and making no move to stop it. Tasuki was also crying, the same quiet tears he'd cried when Nuriko had first died, when he'd sat against the rock, refusing all comfort. Chichiri seemed to be the only one of us who had kept himself in control, but because of the mask I couldn't be sure.   
Tasuki gently pushed one arm under Nuriko and lifted him up, supporting his shoulders. He cradled Nuriko's body against himself, head bent and weeping, the tears dropping onto Nuriko's shirt. Hotohori clasped one of Nuriko's hands in his two, holding it to his forehead, bent over his body much as Tasuki was. The two of them were the most affected by Nuriko's death, possibly because they'd known him longer. Or were they less afraid to show their emotions? I pushed aside the thought and bent my head as Chichiri once again chanted a prayer for the dead over our fallen companion.   
  


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
The internment was a small, private one.   
Tasuki and Hotohori had borne him back to Konan between them, his slight frame draped over the semi-chair their arms had made. Mitsukake followed them, not looking at anyone but Nuriko, a few tears falling unnoticed down his cheeks. Nyan and I were last, again, as we had been last to go. I wanted to look at the place of death once more.   
The snow from the mound was strewn everywhere, some of it being picked up by the wind and sent flying, as if to try and convince us another storm was on the way. Shards and chunks of ice were scattered as well, glinting like tiny mirrors in the new morning sunlight. Our tracks of footprints told a confusing story, but would quickly be obliterated by the next storm or strong wind. It was not a place of healing. It was a barren place where life couldn't be sustained. As I looked at that dismal sight, I was gladder than ever that we had decided to take Nuriko from it.   
Only six people were at the burial just a little later that morning: Tasuki, Hotohori, Houki, Mitsukake, Nyan, and myself. We hadn't told anyone but Houki what we were planning on doing, and no one had seen us return since Nyan had opened the portal into the seishi garden. Houki had been there, sitting on a bench and staring at her hands, looking sadder than I'd ever seen her. She'd stood when we'd appeared and walked to Hotohori and Tasuki, her gaze never leaving Nuriko. She had fingered the hair of her "twin" gently, looking slightly shocked that he had butchered was had been his prized possession, but her face settled in an expression of understanding, as if she knew better than we did what had been going through his mind.   
Tasuki and Hotohori had gently lain him on the ground and taken up their shovels again. Mitsukake's spade had broken the earth next to Chiriko's grave, near the small shrine, and the three of them began to dig a new grave to house a companion's body.   
I wanted to help them, but there were no more tools. I stood, leaning heavily on my staff, grateful the mask hid my face and emotions. There was a gentle tap on my shoulder, and I turned to see Nyan, smiling slightly in understanding, holding out a fresh shovel to me. I smiled back at her and took it, setting my things next to the shrine. Then I stepped forward and joined my fellow seishi.   
It didn't take us long to clear enough earth for the grave; Nuriko had not been a large person, nor a tall one. The grave was still larger then Chiriko's though.   
For a moment I was tempted to refuse to bury him, to keep him above ground where we could always see him, sense his comforting peace. But I knew that was impossible. The cold that had preserved him was gone, and the body would start to deteriorate quickly. At least now we had him near us. It was calming to know that. I could feel myself healing inside, although I would never heal entirely. His and Chiriko's deaths were wounds that could never be fully made right. But they could be soothed.   
We placed him in the grave, the garden silent except for the bird song and trickle of water into the pond, an occasional fish breaking the surface. A small gold-tinted butterfly flew around us for a minute, briefly landing on Nuriko's nose. I had to smile. If he'd been alive, he would've done something silly to the poor thing like try to catch it or chase it everywhere, or curse at it happily to make us laugh. That was how we should remember him, the good times, the fun we'd had, and not his stillness in death.   
Mitsukake fixed his clothes to lie straight, and folded his arms over his stomach. The six of us knelt on the cleared space on either side of the grave, Hotohori and Tasuki by his head, as I chanted the burial chant loud enough for us to hear, but not loud enough to destroy the peace in the air. Tasuki and Hotohori both reached out to touch his hands one last time, once again crying softly, then turned to help us fill in the grave again.   
Shovelful by shovelful, we slowly covered him with the earth that had made way for him. Tasuki and Hotohori paid no attention to their tears, not bothering to wipe them away as we worked. Houki and Nyan wandered off into the garden together, silent as well. We gradually replaced all the earth, leaving a small mound above him roughly the height of Chiriko's. The mound was padded down, packed firmer so none of it would be washed away in a rain. I briefly left them and returned, carrying the reason for my late return.   
I held the wooden staff that had marked him in Hokkan in my hands, feeling the rough carving made by Tasuki's knife that spelled him name rub against my palms. It was his marker, and nothing else.   
Understanding dawned in the others' eyes as I held it vertically above the mound, over a spot I knew would miss Nuriko and looked at them imploringly. One of us stood on each side of his grave: Tasuki on his right, between him and Chiriko, Hotohori at his head, I on his left, and Mitsukake at his foot. They each reached out and wrapped one had around the staff as well. As one, we pushed it through the newly shoveled earth until it hit solid ground, then packed the dirt around its base to hold it upright. Nyan and Houki returned, carrying two bouquets of fresh flowers, one for Nuriko and one for Chiriko, which they laid on the graves. We stood there, in that peaceful place away from the war, the morning sunlight bathing us with its brightness, and mourned for our friends.   
  


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AUTHOR'S NOTES II: Okay, gotta couple things to explain here. First, about Nyan. I found on one of the FY sites I go to a basic description of the nyan nyans that went something like "Taiitsu-kun's helper who can seemingly multiply herself..." You get the picture. It made sense to me. Why deal with several of them when you can have only one? (Spoiler alert here on in on Nyan!) Then in the OVA the Nyan nyan showed up again, except this time it was just ONE girl, and she looked older, talked sensibly, and could do some really cool magic. She even had a chest. So of course in my mind those two conglomerated and I came up with the idea that the one smart older girl (Nyan) split into the many little babbling girls (nyan nyans) as needed.   
I really like the nyan nyans and think they're great, but that description just didn't go with the opening of this chapter. *_~   
Next, the coat thing. This is something born from my own weird mind. I noticed in episode 33 that everyone except Nuriko had a partner in coat-dom, meaning that two people wore the same or almost the same coat. Chiriko and Miaka both had pink, Tasuki and Tamamhome green, and Chichiri and Mitsukake light purple. Nuriko was the only one without a match, and I came to regard that as foreshadowing: he doesn't have a "twin," he's the one that won't leave (MY NURIKO DIED! WAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!). Does that make sense? Well, I figured that if Hotohori had gone as he wanted to (damn advisors, Nuriko might still be alive if Hotohori went!), he would've been Nuriko's partner in coat-dom. This is all going on the assumption that they brought their coats with them from Konan.   
Something really freaky happened while I was writing this. I was in the middle of Tasuki's first section, I'd just gotten to his reflections about Nuriko, when this song came on the radio: Rod Stewart's "Gasoline Alley" (I listen to classic rock while I write most of the time). Nothing of the song sank in until near the end of it, when these lyrics seemed to go slamming into my brain:   
"And if I'm called away and it's my turn to go   
Should the blood run cold in my veins   
Just one favor I'll be asking of you   
Don't bury me here, it's too cold   
Take me back, carry me back"   
Freaky, huh? Don't they fit Nuriko's view for this story? The rest of the song doesn't, I looked up the lyrics (which is how I got that excerpt, hee hee!), but that one little section... and having THAT section be the one that caught my attention... It was weird. But cool.   
Wow. Those're some LONG notes.   
And remember, this is NOT the end of the story! No way, no how, NOT THE END! I still got plans! See ya next chapter!


	3. Healing Sight

  
DISCLAIMER: I am now in full custody of Nuriko's right arm! Mouse-chan, when's my first visiting day, huh huh huh? (Honestly, what do you think?)   
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Plots 3 is finally here! At last, after a good two weeks of work and spell-checking (although I _know_ I missed something, I always do) and proofing and whatnot, I'm done! And now here it is for you, my lovely minions! Mwa ha ha ha! Oooookay, too much Halloween candy for Kaze-chan -_-;;   
All right. This chapter is fairly serious stuff. OK, very serious. Not like it wasn't already, but here... you'll see.   
Sorry about the structure at the end and if it's confusing. It was inspired by the choral odes in Oedipus Rex, the play we're doing in Drama. You're not really supposed to know who's speaking, or even if it's only one person. Good luck.   
And everyone, if you know Mouse-chan, she deserves MUCH praise. I wrote her in a near-panic when I started this chapter, and she helped me above and beyond the call of duty. Still is, as a matter of fact. This might not even be written yet if she hadn't helped. So repeat after me, class: THANK YOU MOUSE-CHAN!   
Please please please please PLEASE review my story. I know it's hard with ff.n on the fritz so much lately, but try? Please? For me?   
And now, on with the story...   
  


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Four days. It had been four days since we'd brought Nuriko from his grave of snow and ice to lie beside Chiriko in the palace. At a glance at my companions I could tell we had done the right thing: the fire of Tasuki's temper was back, Chichiri smiled more, and Hotohori looked less strained. I could even feel myself getting better as well. That time, at least, I had been able to do something right.   
Chichiri, Tasuki, and I went back out to the battlefield later that same afternoon. Hotohori was still being contained by his advisors. I would not pity the men when heika-sama grew fed up with them and went out anyway.   
Truthfully, we could have used his help. Hotohori had put us in charge of the army in all but name, but seeing him fight would have helped the troops even more. Tasuki was proving himself to be a brilliant general, spotting trouble and holes in our defense quickly and sending the appropriate troops to block it. He was stretching our supply of men as far as they would go, and then farther, and somehow it always worked. The Kutou had not been able to get through to the city proper; most of the fighting was taking place in the fields surrounding the city. But that in and of itself was bad enough, as crops were being destroyed and the farmers who lived outside the city wall were being caught in the fighting. I had set up a temporary infirmary near the battle, just inside the wall in a spare courtyard no one seemed to be using, and left Chichiri in charge of it with the woman Emiko as his aide. Tasuki had recruited me to lead a contingent of troops half the time, and for once I wanted to fight. The soldiers were just regular men, but behind them, manipulating them like puppets were the corrupt generals and other officers, and the Kutou heika himself.   
And behind them all, Nakago.   
No one had a doubt that this was what Nakago had been aiming for the entire time he persecuted and tormented us. He could want nothing less than the destruction of Konan. He seemed to prefer watching the battle from atop a cliff or some other out of the way vantage point, smiling cruelly at our gradually thinning troops and our ever-more desperate situation. Occasionally we'd catch a glimpse of him on his horse, in full imperial armor, riding behind the troops and surveying the battle. By his side there was always a small figure we assumed was Suboshi, and there was another dark shape before him in the saddle, draped as if lifeless. Occasionally a gust of wind would swirl the figure's long hair around itself. I assumed that the body was Soi's. She'd taken the sword Tasuki had thrown to save Nakago, and we'd all seen her die. But I couldn't understand why he still had her with him. He was supposed to be as icy as his eyes, concerned only with himself and his goals. Could there actually be feelings under that shell?   
The battle was raging, cresting at the third peak of the day, as the troops charged each other recklessly, swinging as if possessed by demons of war. I pushed my horse through them, swinging at my opponents to keep them back, the specially-trained giant of a horse, the only one they had large enough to carry me, rearing once in awhile to drive foes away with his hooves. Tasuki and I were both mounted on these special horses, the horses with the type of training usually only given to the highest commanders' mounts. They were one blessing in this miserable war; we were able to get pretty much anywhere we needed to be within seconds, as they simply kicked their way through the crowds of soldiers. And at the moment I needed to be somewhere else.   
I saw light glinting off a mirror in a flashing code, the person holding the mirror perched on a rise near the city wall that set him about four feet above the fighting, but far enough away to be out of danger himself. The speck of fire-colored hair identified the signaler. With our seishi powers and communications gone, the three of us had worked out a set of signals with mirrors that we could use to call to each other. The light flashed again, and again, in varying lengths each time. The horse I rode seemed to know where to go, and kicked and reared his way through the fighting to the ridge, reaching it in a third of the time one soldier would have taken.   
I let him carry me a little more away from the combat before jumping off and running back to Tasuki. "_What is it?_" Even I had to shout to be heard above the clash of arms and the screams of pain below us.   
Tasuki pulled me down to his level and yelled into my ear. "_We've got to think of a new plan! Half my fucking men are gone! We can't continue like this, it's suicide!_"   
"_I know! What other options do we have?_"   
He shrugged helplessly. "_Damned if I know! If we move people to one end, we lose the other! If we spread out any more, we'll leave holes! I'm running out of options!_"   
A new horse galloped out of the city gates and carried its rider closer to us, the distinct hair and clothing becoming evident after a few seconds. "_Chichiri's coming! He may have an idea!_" Tasuki nodded, unwilling to use his voice just to affirm a statement.   
The noise seemed to grow louder as we waited for Chichiri to arrive, closer. I looked down and saw the battle had indeed moved closer to our position. It would be on us soon. Without waiting to ask permission I grabbed Tasuki's arm and dragged him at a run down the other side of the rise, ignoring the loud, graphic protests that could still be heard clearly over the other sounds. I didn't care, there was no way the one holding our defense together would be a target during a conference.   
We waited at the bottom of the embankment, and soon after Chichiri topped the rise and skidded down to us. The noise was somewhat muffled now and we were able to talk without shouting. "What is it no da? I've got to get back soon, we've got a multiple fracture in the infirmary no da!" I hid a smile. I'd picked well when I put Chichiri in charge of the infirmary in my place.   
Tasuki was possibly looking grimmer than I'd ever seen him. "We're getting torn to shit out there. We're losing too many men and not replacing them fast enough. Pretty soon they'll punch through our wall." He managed to sigh and groan at the same time. "And half these guys won't listen to me. They don't know effective defense! You wanna win, you gotta surprise the enemy! They use stuff every shitheaded minor commander from here to Hokkan knows! BAKA!"   
"Calm down Tasuki, no da," Chichiri said. "What do you-"   
"TASUKI-SAMA!" An adolescent voice split the air around us. I looked up to see a young boy of about thirteen or so, his hair ripped out of its customary bun, his clothes tattered, fall over the top of the rise and roll and stumble down to us. He quickly picked himself up at the bottom and watched us with wide, half-terrified eyes. "Tasuki-sama! Hagino-sama sent me! He said to tell you the Kutou are about to break through and get to the gate!"   
"FUCK!" Tasuki spun and ran back up the embankment, not pausing to look back. Chichiri and I raced after him, the dirt flying behind us as we scrambled to the top, leaving the boy in the safety of cover, looking terrified.   
The scene below us was even more hopeless than it had been only a few minutes before. The men were slaughtering each other, brutally swinging with sword and knives and other weapons of destruction, fighting simply to stay alive. It was impossible to tell who was friend and who was foe in that melee. The ground was stained red with the spilled blood of the fallen, men were being visibly trampled as they fell, no one helping them because to do so was suicide. It made me sick simply looking at it, but I couldn't turn away.   
Tasuki didn't seem to be fazed, but scanned the wall for the problem area. It became painfully obvious: about a hundred feet away, a large shape, plainly Captain Hagino, was literally pressed between the wall and three attacking soldiers, most of his men lying scattered nearby, a few still managing to stand and hold the defense. Hagino might have been one of the former commanders most opposed to Tasuki's lead, but he could still fight. But they couldn't hold out for long.   
Tasuki cursed again and spun, looking at the boy. "Go find heika-sama! At the palace! Tell him about this, use the back way!" He pointed at the one spot we'd been able to keep the Kutou away, one solitary gate that was our only entrance and exit. My infirmary was there. The boy gulped and nodded, eyes as wide as saucers, and ran. Tasuki returned to watching the battlefield, shouting orders at various people, trying to shuffle troops quickly to plug the hole that would soon appear.   
That's when I felt it.   
  


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I began yelling commands at the top of my lungs, shouting at anyone who could hear me, gesturing almost madly to emphasize where the soldiers were to go. "ARITA! GET YOUR FUCKING MEN OVER THERE TO BLOCK THAT ENTRANCE! SASSA! SEND HALF YOUR MEN WITH HIM, HALF TO HAGINO!" The soldiers defending a fairly solid part of the wall split, flowing to either direction to help their belabored comrades. We might get through this. We just might. If we could get a miracle….   
"WATCH OUT NO DA!"   
A pulsating ball of blue lightening flew past me, blinding me and making lights flicker through my mind. Suddenly I felt a deep impact on my chest, a not-quite pain that nevertheless seemed to burn me to the core. At the same instant there was a deep yell of pain beside me, and I dimly registered a large body - _too large, Suzaku no, damnit, you can't do this to us!_ - fly past me, rolling a few feet down the embankment and lying still.   
"MITSUKAKE!" My vision cleared instantly and Chichiri and I ran down the embankment, tripping over our own feet several times, clutching our chests, the not-quite pain still very much with us. "Mitsukake! Mitsukake! Wake up! Speak to us!" Kneeling next to him, Chichiri tried to make his newest patient answer him, his voice growing ever more desperate with every word. "SPEAK TO ME!" I stood behind Chichiri, grasping his shoulders with a grip like iron, every fiber of my being denying what my eyes saw before me. It couldn't be, it just fucking couldn't be…   
The large healer's eyes, normally so closed to us, fluttered open briefly, closing again as he let out a low groan of pain. My spirits soared. That one little sound, that one little movement, and we knew he was alive. He was still with us. We hadn't lost him like we'd lost Nuriko, Chiriko. He'd get better under Chichiri's care and the four of us, Hotohori included, would make it out of this hell hole of war…   
There was a jingling behind me and I whirled, drawing my sword and tessen, holding one in each hand in the practiced fighting stance that had been drilled into me with the bandits. There was no way anything would get to Mitsukake and Chichiri without going through me first, and there was also no way I'd _let_ it get through me. However, when I saw what waited behind our backs, I felt the color run out of my face. We were all dead… If he wanted, we were all dead…   
Nakago, his face hidden except for his ice-blue eyes, sat on his horse, tall and straight as if he was the most powerful man in the world. Which he was. And he knew it. His hand was raised in front of him, fingers spread in a bizarre interpretation of the pose Mitsukake took when he was healing, but the Kutou shogun's reasons held nothing of compassion or mercy the Suzaku seishi possessed. I knew, under that hood, he was permitting himself a small, malicious smile. Soi's body was still draped over the saddle in front of him, and he had his other arm behind her back, supporting her, holding the reigns with his free hand. Next to him Suboshi stood, ryuseisui dangling from his fingers, grinning wolfishly. He looked more bloodthirsty than I had ever seen anyone before, even in my time as a bandit. And I had seen some damn bloodthirsty people then. We were dead, and I knew it.   
"The Suzaku no shichiseishi… How pathetic. Perhaps I should just end it for you now, spare you the humiliation." His extended hand began to glow with a blue light that started pale but rapidly grew to almost blinding proportions. I tensed myself to jump in front of my friends, ready to take the blast myself.   
Then it was raining - raining arrows! Nakago twisted to the left and brought his glowing hand in front of his face, just in time to project a domed barrier around himself and his fellow seishi, living and dead. The arrows glanced off the barrier, showering on each side in waves deflected too far away to put us in much danger. I hit the ground as one shot past my head, then looked for it and felt my mouth drop open. That carving, that fletching…   
"Knock knock. Who's there? It's Koji. Koji who? Genrou's friend, come to help out his old buddy." That familiar routine was our saving grace. Koji's cocky smile was aimed at Nakago, daring him to do his worst. He leaned on one knee and smirked down at the scene from his position on the highest end of the rise, a good ten feet above us. Behind his ranged each and every bandit from Mt. Reikaku, up to and including Eiken. Each of them was armed to the teeth and wore the bandits' special armor.   
"KOJI!" I couldn't help being thrilled to see my oldest friend in the world. We weren't dead, Mitsukake was coming back to himself, and Koji was there. What could go wrong now?!   
Nakago let his shield die. "Konan commoners. How… quaint. I grow tired of this, let's leave, Suboshi." He whirled his large war horse and cantered away, the dark blonde figure at his side running next to him easily, occasionally glaring back at our reunion with indescribable malice.   
Hell, I didn't care about them anymore. They were gone. Koji and the rest of the bandits spilled over the rise from all directions. Three of the strongest went to Chichiri at Koji's motion to help him move the wounded Mitsukake to his infirmary, while Koji jumped down the ten feet to the ground, landing easily and still smirking at us. I felt my grin widening in return and ran to him, grabbing him by the elbow and swinging him around, the two of us dancing like little kids and laughing like idiots. "Good ta see ya!" "You too ya idiot!" "Why're ya talkin' about yerself again?"   
I heard Chichiri groan. "Tasuki no baka na no da…"   
  


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The pain had come suddenly in the middle of the meeting. I had doubled over myself, falling out of my throne and sprawling on the floor, the crown I had pushed my hair under falling off and rolling under the table. I was carried to my room, despite feeling better - and completely normal - almost immediately. My advisors were attempting to hold me down by my arms and legs, which would have amused me greatly if I hadn't wanted to get up so badly. Finally I simply kicked them off and ran to the throne room, my mostly elderly ministers following at the much slower pace they could muster, knowing that if something had happened, I would be looked for there at first.   
"Heika-sama! Heika-sama!" My reasoning had proved right. The door burst open and a small form nearly flew in the doors, dodging the guards who were attempting to keep it back. The blur was much more agile, though, and wasn't weighed down by armor. The guards swung occasionally, cursing often, but only hitting the floor or the walls. Suddenly I was hit in the torso by the running child, knocking me back into the dais. He stumbled with me, but seemed to figure out who I was. He looked up at me with large, frightened eyes, visibly clenching his jaw. "I've got a message from Tasuki-sama!"   
"YOU LITTLE SHIT!" One of the guards was charging at him, ceremonial spear raised. The boy ran again to avoid the weapon. I ducked under the point and punched the man in the stomach, my temper short and about to snap. He doubled over, clutching his stomach, falling to his knees almost overly-dramatically.   
I rubbed my hand, not being used to hand-to-hand combat as Tamahome and Tasuki were, glaring at him. "You are the one who should be ashamed." I made sure to put all of my royal disdain and shame into my voice. Anyone who would chase a child just for bringing a message did not deserve to be part of my personal guard. I glanced at the second guard, who had backed nervously into a corner, with carefully narrowed eyes, giving him a look that was equally venomous and condemning as I pointed at the slumped man. "Remove him. We do not require his services any longer." He quickly nodded, obviously frightened out of his mind, and ran to his companion, helping him stand and whispering to him. Once he cast a fearful look at me, but I kept my eyes hard until the two of them limped out of the room in the direction of the barracks.   
A timid whimper drew my attention, and I looked back over my shoulder to see the boy peering slightly around the curtain he'd hidden behind and drawn tightly around himself, as if that would make him disappear. I sighed and beckoned to him, rubbing at my temple as the beginnings of a headache echoed through my skull. "Don't be afraid boy, we won't harm you."   
He slowly crept out, and I could tell my initial impression had been wrong. He was more adolescent than boy, a scrawny twelve or thirteen years old, short and almost stunted in growth. His clothes were mere rags, his hair mussed around his head. He reminded me somewhat of Tamahome's younger brother Chuei, only with different hair and a smaller build. There was fire in those eyes.   
"Gomen nasai, heika-sama. I caused trouble. But Tasuki-sama sent me to tell you something, and he didn't give it to me in writing. I think they thought I was trying to break in." He kneeled respectfully, still taking deep breaths to replace the air he'd lost in the chase.   
I shook my head again. "We will worry about why later, for now just tell us the message." I sat down on the uncomfortable throne again, certain I looked the worst I ever had during official business.   
The boy nodded and bowed his head again, clearing his throat. "My name is Michio; I'm a farmer's son. Hagino-sama chose me for his new messenger after his was killed because I can run fast." I hid a smile. Hagino had certainly chosen well. "Just a little ago Hagino-sama sent me to Tasuki-sama to tell him troops were about to break through his defenses and get to the gate. When Tasuki-sama heard this he told me to come tell you, then began moving men around and managed to get the gate blocked. I'm not sure what's happened since I left, but that was the last I saw." He remained kneeling and looking at the floor, explaining everything succinctly. Perhaps he could be of more use than another farmer…   
I dragged my mind back to the present and smiled at him, the emperor's smile, but still heartfelt. "Well done Michio. The news is greatly appreciated." I turned and beckoned to the shadows behind the dais, and an attendant appeared seemingly from nowhere and bowed low. "See that Michio receives food and drink before sending him back to Hagino. And see if there is a need for him under the captain of the guard when this war is over."   
"H-h-heika-sama?"   
I smiled at the boy again. "Do not worry."   
"I-I won't… arigato, heika-sama!" I nodded as they walked off, the attendant leading the slightly stunned boy, who kept glancing back at me with wide eyes.   
I waited until they turned the corner in the direction of the kitchen before letting myself slump almost out of my throne. The memory of the not-quite pain came rushing back to me, and I pressed my hand against my chest, exactly at the place I had felt it. What had that been? I knew it was nothing the matter with my own body, but that left only one other option I refused to think much about. If one of them had been hurt…   
Almost two hours later came my answer, as I heard the clatter of hooves outside the door in the courtyard and two loud, enthusiastic voices exclaiming wildly as tack jingled in the background. There was a slight pause before the doors flew open, banging against the walls as the hinges let out great cries of protest. The familiar fire-colored head appeared, as well as a slate blue one about the same height that looked somewhat familiar. Tasuki and his friend were laughing at each other, obviously relieved as well as teasing. Tasuki kneeled and pulled his friend down next to him, and then I recognized the other man: Koji, the only bandit from Mt. Reikaku who'd remained with Tasuki when he'd taken back leadership of the bandits, and, if I remembered right, the one who'd taken command when Tasuki had come to join us. Tasuki stood again, but Koji remained kneeling respectfully, keeping his eyes down, waiting for Tasuki to present him. Not behavior I'd expect from a bandit, but it did him credit.   
"Heika-sama, perhaps you remember-" Tasuki's eyes were dancing wickedly, and I wondered if he'd given Koji fair warning "-the leader of the Mt. Reikaku bandits, Koji?"   
"Huh? 'Perhaps he remembers?' Where'd ya get that Genrou, I've never seen him before in…" he trailed off as he looked up, his mouth slowly dropping open and his eyes widening to saucer-like proportions. I hid a smile. Tasuki didn't bother, grinning as wide as I'd ever seen him, his fangs adding a touch of maliciousness to his expression. He was taking much pleasure in Koji's reaction.   
Koji leaped to his feet and grabbed Tasuki by the collar of his shirt, shaking the younger man violently. "IDJET! Why didn't ya fuckin' TELL me he was the EMPEROR?!"   
Tasuki wrenched away, smirking at him. "Because ya'd never believe me, and ya know it." I just sat in my throne, right elbow propped on the arm, my face hiding with my right hand, laughing silently.   
Koji whacked him upside the head with his open head, more a warning than a blow. "Ya get KILLED fer doin' stuff like that to someone like him! I.DON'T. WANT. TO. BE. KILLED!"   
"If you two are finished?"   
Koji abruptly dropped his friend and knelt again, bowing his slate-blue head low, almost seeming to hide beneath hair nearly as wild as Tasuki's. "Heika-sama, I represent the bandits of Mt. Reikaku. We've come to offer our services and fight in the army." Tasuki kneeled next to him, subconsciously reclaiming his place among their ranks. "Ge- Tasuki's agreed to be our commander, since he doesn't have a unit of his own." He looked up at me again, eyes steely hard, determined as his redheaded friend and just as stubborn. He would be a formidable foe on the battlefield. "Sire, the bandits of Mt. Reikaku pledge their assistance!"   
I stood suddenly, drawing myself up to my full height, knowing I presented myself every inch the emperor as Koji's eyes widened minimally again, then narrowed to normal. Tasuki was also watching me, eyes narrowed slightly, wary, as if I was a cat about to spring. "We accept your pledge of service. Prepare your Reikaku unit! You shall join the others tomorrow. Now, Tasuki." I motioned for him to stand, relaxing my posture, stepping down from the dais, becoming the seishi I was at heart again. He stood, his face a mixture of apprehension and understanding. I almost smiled; he never had been good at hiding his emotions. I pushed away the thought. I had to know… "Tasuki… today… in battle… what happened?"   
He'd known what I was going to ask. A flash of pain chased across his face, but he schooled his features into a neutral expression. "Right after I sent that kid to you… We three were up there, directing the men, and then… Nakago…" He paused for a moment, looking down and taking a deep, shuddering breath. "Nakago came out of nowhere, and Mitsukake…"   
I winced, closing my eyes and gripping his shoulder lightly. "How is he?"   
"That woman - Emiko, I think - is watching over him, along with Chichiri. They say as long as he rests he should hold out until he gets his powers back and can cure himself. But… he's in a lot of pain…"   
I bowed my head slightly, my free hand slowly clenching into a loose fist. The Kutou shogun would not go unpunished for this newest wound to my friends. Even as I stood there I could feel a slight, dull pain, from the same place I felt I had been wounded earlier, that I hadn't let myself feel before. It was Mitsukake's. And I welcomed it. Because as long as it was there, it meant he was still with us.   
  


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
For the first day he'd simply lain on the long pallet that had been brought for him, heavily sedated, while the doctors and I bandaged and rebandaged his wound. There was a circle a handspan's wide and half as deep in the middle of his torso, right below his lungs and over his stomach. The flesh around the circle for two inches had been charred, burned to something you'd never want to see on human skin. The darkness gradually faded away from the circle, first to brown, then tan, then to his normal bronzed skin. He was obviously in pain when he breathed, taking in short, shallow gasps, never holding them long. Either Emiko or I was always next to him, keeping a close eye on him and occasionally having to force some food or water on him. The bandages were changed often, and we took turns spreading less than fragrant yet immensely helpful salves on the wound. I forced myself to not look away from it, disgusting as it looked. How anyone could live through that was beyond my imagination, but I was grateful - eternally grateful he'd stayed.   
The next day, Tasuki led his bandit friends out to the battlefield, and I could hear the odds tipping dramatically in our favor. I didn't know what they were doing, and I didn't _want_ to know. But whatever it was worked; the Kutou officers were much more panicked. I found myself smiling grimly on more than one occasion, then having to force myself to concentrate on the patients again.   
Three days after Nakago's attack Mitsukake was awake and coherent, though still very weak. We continued changing his bandages, spreading more salves on the wound, and had him move his arms and legs a bit to make sure they all still worked. Thankfully he hadn't been paralyzed by the blast of blue ki, but the change in his demeanor worried me. He had always been quiet, a half-contented, half-sad quiet, which I took for the loss of his love, Shoka. Now he was still quiet, but it was pensive, desperate. Many times I'd glance at him to see him watching me longingly, the look hidden to all but those of us who knew him closely. I made sure to keep a close watch on him, in case he decided to disobey our orders and take care of the patients. We had more than enough doctors to watch everyone, and he would be a much greater help after he was healed. I pulled Emiko to the side after one such instance and told her not to let him set one foot flat on the ground. She simply nodded, an expression of complete understanding on her features, before returning to tend to my friend.   
Mitsukake's infirmary was growing by the hour. Refugees constantly trickled through the gates, many carrying wounded with them. We took the injured and placed them on pallets that had been unrolled on the floors of the buildings surrounding the original courtyard, let the others rest for a bit before sending them closer to the center of the city and the palace. A communal kitchen had been started by some of the women who had wanted to help but had no more than basic nursing skills, cooking kettles of soup over small fires that dotted the ground everywhere in the courtyard now. It seemed that the broth was the first warm food most of these people had seen in days. It ripped my heart into pieces to see my countrymen suffering. I prayed for the war to soon end every moment I could spare.   
Five days after Mitsukake was wounded, one of the cooks asked me to go get more vegetables from the palace stores, as I was the only one guaranteed access. Something in me told me not to go, but I couldn't ignore the dirt-streaked faces of the hungry children that rested against the walls of the buildings. I commandeered a horse and galloped through the streets of Eiyo as quickly as I could, dodging habitant and refugee alike, even going so far as to jump some people sleeping in one of the back alleys. The guards opened the gate when they saw me coming, recognizing me even from a distance. I rode through and past the stables, cutting time by going straight to the kitchen. Jumping off the horse outside the doors, I tossed the reigns at one of the kitchen boys and raced inside. The head cook saw me and began shouting directions to two of his helpers, who ran in different directions to get my usual amount of required supplies while I fidgeted with impatience. I didn't wait for a bag when they brought me what I asked for, simply gathered the things in my arms, ran through the door, and vaulted on the horse again. My ride back was somewhat more controlled, as I had to be sure not to lose any of the food I had been sent for, but I made up for it by pushing the horse faster on the straight-aways. I apologized to the poor horse when I arrived back at the infirmary and returned it to its master, then sped through the entrance to the courtyard.   
What I had feared had come true. Mitsukake was off his pallet, moving and tending to the patients. I cast a quick glance around for Emiko, not seeing her and wondering how she could let this happen against my express orders, then practically threw the supplies at one of the cooks and ran to my friend, who was kneeling next to one of the patients, surround by three women who obviously thought they were being helpful.   
"Mitsukake! Mitsukake! You have to rest no da!" I knelt next to him, pleading with him silently to listen to me and return to his pallet, get rest so he could help as he wanted.   
He ignored me, kept tying a bandage on the patient's arm. "Put your hand here, hold it steady," he said to one of the woman, who complied.   
"Mitsukake!"   
  


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
I silently shook my head, refusing to listen to him, refusing to rest while there were still wounded. "There, you'll be fine soon," I said to the frightened boy I was tending, smiling gently at him.   
"Mitsukake!" Chichiri pulled on my arm, trying to get me to move in the direction of my pallet. "You need rest! Please go lie down no da! You'll only make yourself worse this way!"   
"Chichiri, I can't." My eyes filled with silent tears. Didn't he understand? "I'm a doctor. I can't rest until everyone is seen to." I hadn't been able to save Shoka… or Chiriko, who'd died so we might live… or Nuriko, the one who'd sacrificed himself so we could continue on. I'd failed in my profession, failed them. If there was even a chance I could save just one of these people before me now, and I hadn't taken it because I'd been resting, I could never forgive myself. "Nuriko… Chiriko… I wasn't able to save them…" I felt the tears spill over at the thought of my two friends, both with so much to look forward to in life.   
"But what use will you be to these people here if you kill yourself doing this no da?!" The monk sounded more desperate, and depressed, than I'd ever heard him. Why would he take this, something I had to do, so seriously? I wasn't feeling pain, though I suspected it was due to the drugs I knew they were putting in my tea. I felt weak, yes, but I could walk. I could save these people as long as I could walk…   
"Shoka! Shoka! Just hold on, Shoka!" My head turned in the direction of the cry, as did Chichiri's. A young couple, neither older than myself, were running down the road in our direction, looks of complete desperation on their faces. The woman, who'd been the one crying out, held a small bundle in her arms, which she never took her eyes off of. The man guided her by her elbow, helplessness shining in his eyes. I recognized them, refugees from a nearby town we'd sent on barely fifteen minutes before. But now they were back… And that name…   
I pushed myself slowly to my feet and stepped off the veranda where I'd been seeing the patients, wincing slightly as the wound pulled against my muscles. "What seems to be the problem?" I asked, keeping my voice completely professional, not letting the thought that had sprung to my mind into my tone. Shoka, they'd said… Shoka…   
"Doctor! It's our daughter! She stopped breathing!" The woman quickly handed me the bundle of dark brown blanket as I again kneeled on the pebbly ground. A baby girl was wrapped up inside, looking as if she were peacefully sleeping - but no breath was being drawn in or out. "Please doctor! Help her!"   
I froze. I could do nothing. My seishi powers were gone. This wasn't something I could cure by normal doctoring. I was helpless. And it was all so familiar… The girl looked startlingly like her, a much younger version of the girl I'd met at the age of twelve, played with joyfully, had been comforted by at seventeen when my family had been swept away in the enormous floods that year. The woman I'd grown to love… and lose. Twice. I couldn't let it happen a third time.   
"I don't know what I can do for her," I said quietly, not able to look the girl's parents in the eyes. My hand strayed to a pouch at my belt, and I unconsciously opened it. Only when my fingers brushed against what was inside did I realize what my body was telling me. I pulled the small jar out of the pouch and gazed at it for what seemed to be an eternity, but was really no longer than a breath. "I'll give her this healing water…" I began to shift, to hand the child back to her mother so I could open the jar, but stopped. I'd lost my seishi powers. I might have lost the power of the water I carried as well. Could I really offer these people false hope? If this was indeed Shoka, could I kill her again with uncertain methods?   
No. I could never.   
I wrapped my arms more firmly around the little girl's blanket, bracing myself on my left knee, making sure my right foot was planted firmly on the ground. It wouldn't do to fall on the girl after my strength left me. I drew in a deep breath and turned my mind inward, flew into the inner portion of my soul, the place where I could feel my seishi powers emerge from when I had performed my healings. I tried to break down the barriers that prevented me from going to them, the glowing, blue barriers that stopped me from saving lives.   
"Mistukake! Don't! MITSUKAKE!" Chichiri's voice came from far away. I willed myself to ignore the man who had been my closet friend since Shoka had died, intent on saving the girl. I was dimly aware of a pair of arms throwing themselves around me. My eyes weren't working right, even though they were open, but I could faintly detect a green glow coloring the air around me. "MITSUKAKE!"   
  


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
"Sire! The troops are overrunning us! We simply don't have enough men!" I was desperate. Koji and I knelt before the Emperor - in that setting, it was impossible to think of Hotohori as anything but the ruler of our country - giving our grim report. The casualties, though not as astounding as they had been five days earlier, were still horrible. Many, many good men would never be returning home again.   
Hotohori knew this; his eyes were narrowed in grief as well as contemplation. There was no worthier ruler to die for, I knew, and by now all my bandits knew as well. "Are you sure there is nothing we can do?"   
"Sire," Koji spoke up next to me, "we're doin' our best, we really are, but there's just too damn many of them." I elbowed him for not watching his language, even though I was probably the last person in the world who should do that, but he just ignored me. "If we had two, maybe three more groups of bandits, we'd have a damn better chance, but the way thin's are now…"   
We both shot to our feet as Hotohori abruptly stood. "Then I shall go out and command the troops."   
"But heika-sama!" The required councilor, who always had to be present at military reports to take down the records, squawked from behind Hotohori's throne, nearly dropping his brush in surprise.   
"I am through listening to the council's advice. It's only getting my men killed." Hotohori was unusually harsh. I noticed dimly that he'd dropped the royal plural. Now he wasn't just angry. He was _severely pissed off_.   
Then-   
  


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
I'd never felt more like strangling someone than at the moment the councilor raised his voice in protest. He, and most of his kind, were cowards, politicians who'd been comfortably ensconced in padded chairs for most of their careers, thinking what they did was "right for the country." To be fair, most of the time it was, but now was not "most of the time." Now there was a war. And for them to be protesting…   
I was not trained for that. I had learned from my late parents the best way to rule was through experience. I'd spent time training with the army. I was fit to lead men in battle, and had done so before. I would _not_ just sit here, safe in my throne room, because they wanted me to remain. My way, whatever happened would be my victory - or my defeat. I would have my friends with me, Tasuki to help me command, the bandit Koji, proving himself ever more capable, beside him, Chichiri, our strong pillar, and Mitsukake, when he'd recovered. How _dare_ they say I would not go out to fight when I had protection, and friends, such as these?   
Then-   
  


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
"MITSUKAKE!"   
My voice ripped across the still air, drawing all attention to gaze at us. I was holding on to him as if he were a lifeline and I a drowning man, though it was the other way around. But he didn't respond, said nothing, staring up at the sky above us, cradling the little girl in his arms, the girl who bore his dead lover's name. His eyes were vacant, as if his soul no longer lived in that body. He neither moved nor seemed to breathe, but I knew what he was doing, knew with a certainly all too painful what he was planning, hoping against hope I was wrong and knowing I wasn't, calling him silently, calling him back, back to us, back to me, back to himself-   
  


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
Then it happened, all too quickly for me to understand   
  


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
The light came, in front of me, but there was something there, stopping me   
  


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
I could see it, blocking the way, preventing me from its prisoner   
  


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
Feel it, push it down, free what's trapped inside   
  


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
It was me, that blocked light   
  


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
Inside me, with me   
  


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
Myself, my soul   
  


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
Break the barrier   
  


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
Call him   
  


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
Tasuki   
  


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
Hotohori   
  


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
Chichiri   
  


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
Release the power   
  


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
Flood the world   
  


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
Save   
  


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
He wasn't   
  


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
No   
  


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
Tears   
  


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
He couldn't   
  


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
_No_   
  


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
Burst forth   
  


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
Healing   
  


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
Dying   
  


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
Giving   
  


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
Forgetting   
  


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
NO!   
  


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
Couldn't   
  


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
Leaving   
  


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
Wasn't   
  


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
_NO!_   
  


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
"MITSUKAKE!"   
  


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
Shoka… I'm coming…   



	4. Eagle's Flight

  
DISCLAIMER: Don't own... ~sighs~   
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Wow... "Plots" is almost finished. When I started writing it I had no idea I'd be brave enough to post on ff.n, and I'm glad I did, the reception it's gotten has inspired me to write other angsty/thought process things, like "And I Let Go" (semi-obscure Amiboshi fic I dreamed up one night).   
Arigato, minna, for sticking with me, especially since it's taken me such a long time with this chapter. Chiriko-chan, thank you for finding this fic nearly a month after it was updated last and reviewing. It helped me so much in getting focused again.   
Mouse-chan says for full effect one needs to listen to the slow version of Itooshi Hito no Tameni (the opening song) while reading this, and I agree. So sweet, so sad...   
Just one chapter left, after this...   
  


*************************************************************************************

  
  
I couldn't stop one or two tears from escaping as I stood in front of their graves that bright morning. Three graves. Three friends gone. How many more would I lose before this was all over? I was never really the praying type, despite being one of Suzaku's chosen seishi, but that once I bowed my head in silence, my hands clutched tightly together in front of my body, hoping and wishing as hard as I could that we would all make it through this damn miserable hell called war. Tamahome and Miaka were the gods only knew where, and for the moment it was as if they were dead too. Five friends gone, three seishi left. Would it be enough? Would we be able to hold up under the incredible burden we were no longer strong enough to bear?   
A sound somewhat like the noise of Chichiri's staff, yet not it, caught my attention and I quickly wiped my face dry. No good to let 'em think I was a sentimental fool, although Chichiri already knew that.   
"Hi pal." His lilting voice carried easily over the silence. There had been a temporary break in the fighting, a day of truce to separate and bury the dead, pay last respects to fallen comrades. I had come here, and he had known that. My blue-haired friend stepped up beside me and picked up a stick of incense from the shrine. He didn't light it, but turned it over and over in his fingers, giving them something to do. He frequently did that, he always needed to be doing something. I might have been the boss's favorite, but I knew who would've been the one making all the right decisions for me as I ran the bandits. They were incredibly lucky to have him as their leader. "Knew ya'd be here."   
I didn't answer him, staring instead right in front of me, at the mismatched set of graves that held members of my surrogate family. He glanced over, blinking in the sun, then abruptly dropped to his right knee in front of Nuriko's grave and placing the incense, still unlit, in the earth. It looked like a miniature cattail, bobbing there gently in the small breeze that danced through the garden. "Ya know, I remember him real well. Ya don't really ferget someone who tried t' strangle ya t' death." I smiled mirthlessly at that memory, when we'd just met the three travelers and Miaka had decided to help me reclaim my tessen. "He was pretty impressive. Then again, we weren't all that sure that he _was_ a he." He looked in my direction, at the newest grave, barely two days old. The sheer size of it spoke volumes about the man sleeping peacefully beneath the ground, who'd had a heart as big as his body. "And him. Fuck man, I could never do what he did, we both know it. He was gonna be better, and he gives up his life t' save one baby girl. That's… that's somethin' ya don't see a lot nowadays." He stood up again, causing the rings on the leather armor he wore to jingle. I was wearing the same apparatus. Neither of us were idiots enough to unquestionably think the enemy would _hold_ to the temporary truce.   
Koji gazed down at the earth that he, Hotohori, Chichiri, and I had used to cover the large healer. "I don't know what I'm tryin' t' say, man. And yer bein' silent isn't helpin' much either. But look… damn, here I am, the leader of the most feared bandits of the past ten years or so, the guest of Emperor Saihitei himself, stayin' in a palace, fightin' fer my country, best friend of a legendary seishi. Ya know, people're startin' t' talk about us like heroes, not outlaws." His mouth twisted into an ironic smile. "If we're not careful we'll lose that bad image we've been workin' so hard t' get." The look dropped away to be replaced with one I'd never seen him use before, one of almost infinite sadness. "And we might look like heroes t' those clods who don't fuckin' know any better, but we know we're not. Ye're the hero. All ya guys are the heroes. Not us. Especially… these three." His eyes began to glass over.   
I was shocked. Koji? Cry? Hell no. It couldn't happen. It went against all natural laws for him to cry. Yet there he was, standing in front of graves of people he knew little to nothing of, only stories I'd told him in the past few days and what he'd gathered from his own brief meetings with them. And he was crying for them.   
"Koji…" My voice creaked with disuse, and I coughed quietly before trying again. I placed my left hand on his shoulder and nodded slightly. "Thanks man."   
He looked at me, not bothering to wipe away the tears. I wished I could be as strong as he was, able to show feelings without looking like a wuss. "I knew ya needed it. But it's the truth. What they did, even what ya yerself did, those thin's're nothin' less than heroic. After all, how can ya be legendary warriors if ya don't do the good stuff?"   
I laughed, the first time I'd done so since Mitsukake died. It sounded right there, in the peaceful, secluded place where my friends could sleep for the rest of eternity. They all much preferred laughter, even the quiet healer. Mitsukake… in some ways the strongest of us all. I knuckled a fresh tear out of the corner of my eye and forcefully turned my thoughts to more pleasant manners. "Speakin' of the good stuff, how 'bout we go get somethin' t' drink?" I used my hand on his shoulder to turn him around, and the two of us began walking back towards the buildings.   
"What're ya thinkin' of?"   
"Well, we could start off with sake, acourse, but I know where the real hard stuff's kept."   
"Bet ya found out yer first night here."   
"Ya expect me t' do otherwise?"   
  


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
The infirmary was a strange and lonely place now. Emiko and I continued to run it, but we both worked automatically, performing in an endless rhythm that never seemed to quit. As our former patients went out, fresh ones took their places. The palettes were always full, especially on today, when people took advantage of the day of rest to cross to the city. Now even the blankets that people brought with them, filthy as some of them were, were resting places for the wounded. We had more than one death every hour, people who had been too severely wounded to last long or had gone for too much time without treatment. Tama was always underfoot, the saddest animal I'd seen in years, yowling and wanting to be held. I'd taken to carrying him in my shirt, for my comfort as well as his. He missed Mitsukake. We all did. I kept looking up, expecting to see him step through the entrance to the courtyard, smiling and saying it had all been a joke, he was really alive - although if the man ever joked once in all the months I knew him I'd be tempted to eat my kasa. He just didn't joke. But Suzaku, how I wished he did, and it would be just a cruel hoax.   
I'd felt like I'd lost the one friend I'd had in years. And while I knew that wasn't true, that I still had Tasuki and his highness and even Koji now, I'd lost the one person who could possibly understand what I had gone through, was still going through. Who else could know the pain of having killed the person closest to him in the world? Losing one's entire life in simple seconds? Each of the Suzaku seishi had been through their private hell, but only we two knew what it was like to have caused it.   
And now I was alone.   
Only the cat was there to comfort me, and as smart as he was he couldn't speak, couldn't really listen, couldn't comprehend the scale of misery I would try to convey. Just yesterday we had buried his master, and we hadn't been able to keep him out. Tama had tried to climb in the grave, curl up on Mitsukake's chest, but we'd chased him out. And as we covered him, Tama kept meowing, yelling, as if he was trying to tell us Mitsukake wasn't dead.   
But he was. There was no getting around it.   
A new patient distracted me, and for a few minutes I managed not to think of my lost friend. But as soon as I leaned against the wall and the girl was carried off I was flooded by memories. My first sight of him, learning from Miaka and Nuriko the story of Shoka, the quiet times we'd spent together, simply thinking. He had found the words to help everyone after Nuriko's passing, when I had choked and the sounds died on my lips. He had given himself to save another he didn't know. It hurt so much, I could _feel_ him die within me, even as he died in my arms. I just snapped, shrieking at the soldiers who had been healed with his sacrifice and gone right back to fighting. I could never forgive them, Kutou or Konan. They acted like he didn't matter.   
I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned to see Emiko. For a small woman she had a commanding presence, but today she was as exhausted as I was. We were overworked and understaffed, and the two of us did most things ourselves. She gave me a small, sad smile, squeezed my shoulder, and turned back to another wounded soldier.   
She had transferred her quiet strength to me. I picked up Tama and put him back in my shirt, standing slowly, supporting the cat with one hand as he curled against my stomach. He would stay with me. I knew he would.   
And maybe, in some way, so would Mitsukake.   
  


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
The palace was strangely empty. All the refugees who'd been crowded in various places, sleeping where there was room, had left for the day, most of them to try and locate loved ones they'd been separated from. The servants, too, had made themselves scarce, and as I prowled the halls on this supposed day of peace I felt more furtive than ever. Most of the courtiers had left, escaping through the fighting to their estates and provinces. My advisors were still there, of course, as were several others, but surely not even a fourth of the number we would have had normally.   
I was restless, I didn't know why, but nothing would occupy me. Paperwork, boring even in peacetime, now made me want to rip it to shreds. Books I'd read and enjoyed held no interest, were tossed aside in dark corners where more likely than not they would never be found. Hour after hour passed as I was plagued by thoughts of pain, misery, the plight of the people I ruled slowly pushing away everything else.   
I was to blame. I hadn't been there for any of my friends. Nuriko would still be alive if I had been there, Chiriko probably would also, and Mitsukake… I couldn't forgive myself. I was the cause of their death, I who could have prevented it, who SHOULD have prevented it, even just as Emperor. Even if they weren't seishi, they were still my subjects, and it was my job to protect them. I had failed them. Failed them miserably.   
I slowly collapsed to lean against the wall of the darkened hallway, laughing bitterly. Mitsukake… was this what Mitsukake had felt? He was a healer, yet he had been unable to help his friends, his love… He was so much more than me, giving up his life for the little girl… but if I had been out there he wouldn't have been injured in the first place! It was because of me! Me!   
And then I was running, running, knocking aside anyone in my way, from servants to courtiers, my robes streaming out behind me, the tie on my hair coming loose and falling off along the way, running, running, running out of control to an unknown destination. People I didn't recognize reached out, tried to stop me, but I burst past them with speed that would have made Tasuki jealous. I blew past guards who had been alerted, sent to catch me, running outside, bursting through a set of doors and leaping down the steps. The gardens lay before me and I headed straight for them, ducking into the seishi garden and taking the familiar path to the pond.   
It was nearly night; the sky was turning dark gray above me as I fell to my knees in front of my friends' graves, stars just beginning to shine in the twilight as I lay there, sobbing for my friends and my failures. They were gone, they were gone, and nothing I could do could bring them back. We had not the power of Suzaku anymore, the two Shinzaho had been used to call Seiryu instead, the miko had vanished along with one of the warriors, three others were dead. There were only three left, fighting despair and heartache, trying to keep on our feet so we could face the Kutou, and hold them back for as long as we could. Everything was against us now, and the best we could hope for was that Sairou and Hokkan would decide to help us and send reinforcements. We'd sent letters long ago, asking for their help, but both nations were understandably unwilling to send troops they might need to guard their own lands if the Kutou won over us.   
It was over. I knew it, somehow, that my time as Emperor would never be the same after this. Whether we won, or lost, or just reached a truce, we would have much work ahead of us to rebuild, if we were allowed to rebuild at all. And so I let myself go, freed the tears I'd been holding back for years, and cried at the feet of my friends' graves. Cried for me, cried for them, the lives they would never have. Cried for my people, who were being tormented, persecuted by foreign soldiers. Cried for children who wouldn't see parents again, and parents whose children had been ripped from them. This was war. This was chaos.   
This was hell.   
And no amount of crying could fix it, however much I wished it could.   
  


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
The next day dawned grim in my eye. Today was the day that Hotohori-sama was insisting on going to war. Tasuki and I had both tried to talk him out of it, I more than Tasuki; he was too valuable to the country to be injured. But he had simply refused to listen to us and told one of the servants to make sure his armor was ready.   
I had stolen a quick glance in Tasuki's direction, and the worry within me grew as I saw the smirk that was threatening to fight its way onto the bandit's face. He would enjoy this. Enjoy having our emperor in danger.   
Or maybe just enjoy watching what the emperor _did_ to the enemy. We'd seen him practice in the past few days, his sword slicing the air like liquid, his movements too fast to be detected. I was probably worrying myself witless for nothing; Hotohori-sama WAS royalty after all, and royals received the best education that could be found, both in books and weaponry. While I was useless in a large-scale battle, especially without my ki abilities, Hotohori had been trained for this almost since birth.   
I mentally kicked myself for being so morbid. He could take care of himself, it wasn't like he was five.   
_Ahh, but Chichiri, he is the ruler no da. And you didn't think Nuriko or Chiriko could be defeated, either._   
Shut up, I told the annoying little voice. He'll go whether we want him to or not and you know it na no da.   
_Then at least tell Tasuki to keep an eye on him, since you won't be there._   
I reluctantly gave in to this rather sensible piece of advice, decided to determine if having conversations with myself meant I was going crazy _later,_ and went to find the fire-headed bandit.   
He and Koji were in the set of rooms that had been given to the bandits for their use while they stayed to fight, Tasuki pulling on his leather armor and Koji sharpening his sword and daggers. Various other weapons belong to other bandits leaned against the walls and were scattered over the floor, but none of them were to be seen. "Where's everyone else, no da?" I asked, stepping gingerly around the floor to avoid impaling my feet on various sharp things.   
"Breakfast. Quickest way t' get 'em outta here in th' mornin' is t' say they've got food waitin'," Koji called, a smirk cresting his features. "Greedy pigs."   
"I'm not surprised, na no da." I shook my head at the large stomachs and small brains of some members of our gender, then looked up seriously at Tasuki, slipping the mask off my face. "We have to talk. Now."   
"Ehh? What's goin' on Chichiri? Ya get me scared when ya take that thin' off, I know ye're gonna get serious."   
I groaned in despair. "And _just_ when we get you to start talking like a _normal_ person, your friends show up and you revert."   
"What th' fuck're ya talkin' about? This IS 'normal'!" He glared at me dangerously and I decided not to press the point.   
"Tasuki, this _is_ serious. You have to keep an eye on Hotohori while you're out there, I can't do it from a mile away. He's…. he's strange now, he's not himself, he might do something stupid like get hurt."   
"Hotohori can take care o' himself and ya know it, so don't go askin' me t' _baby-sit_ him!" Tasuki jokingly drew his sword and pointed it in my direction, poking the air with it.   
"I'm not _asking_ you to! I'm TELLING you!" I knocked the sword aside with my staff, smacking out of his hand and to the other side of the room, then bashed him on the top of the head with the tip. "Don't you _get it?_ We call him Hotohori-sama for a _reason!_ He's the most important person in this country, and he's not as good as he normally is! _Someone has to watch out for him, because I damned well know he's not going to be watching out for himself!"_   
Tasuki and Koji both stared at me speechlessly, frozen with shock. I leaned against my staff, breathing hard. I'd been as mad at Tasuki as I had been at those soldiers who had wasted Mitsukake's wonderful gift. At my new friend, and my friend and fellow seishi. I hadn't exploded in front of anyone close to me in years, and the feeling was strange and left me exhausted. But I was right, and by the looks on their faces they knew it. Hotohori-sama would think of his subjects first and himself last, and while he was a formidable enemy he also wasn't thinking clearly. I wasn't sure how Tasuki and I were still lucid, but I suspected it was because we had less on our minds… and, in a way, were used to tragedy. We grieved, but we went on. Hotohori, however… the gossip was he hadn't been close to either of his parents or any of his half-siblings, and while at least his parents were dead he'd never experienced the loss of someone close to him until Nuriko had died.   
I would be a mile away in the infirmary. Tasuki would be surrounded by a group of trained fighters who wouldn't let him out of their sight. But Hotohori-sama… I just couldn't rid myself of this sense of wrongness and an _it's a bad idea to let him do this_ feeling. I had learned not to ignore my feelings. It had saved my life more than once.   
But there was no way he'd stay behind now.   
I sighed and slumped into a chair that had been left pulled away from its table, leaning my staff on my shoulder. "Gomen… I didn't mean to yell at you two. I just… can't shake this _feeling_…"   
A hand clapped itself on my shoulder, and I looked up to see Tasuki grinning fangily down at me. "Don't worry about it, we got it covered. Ya can't be there t' worry, so we'll worry fer ya."   
"Yeah," Koji said confidently. "Just leave it t' us, we'll stick t' him so tight he won't be able t' _eat_ wifout one of us breathin' down his neck."   
I felt my lips stretch in a tentative smile. "Arigato Tasuki, Koji."   
  


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
It was strangely exhilarating.   
All around us were people fighting, dying, living in torture, and I was whooping with laughter and galloping around like an idiot. My best friend was there, Hotohori was fine, and not one of my guys had been hurt yet. I was doing something I'd been trained to do for five freakin' years and was facing some real bastards who I had no opposition to fighting. Traveling with the other seishi hadn't made me THAT much of a pacifist.   
Around noon Koji, Hotohori, I, and some other people in charge met for a quick strategy session.   
"The enemy is barricaded here, here, and here," one of the generals said, pointing to three different places on a map spread on the rocky ground. "We've got them trapped here, but they could get through here within a few hours." More pointing. "I suggest, sire, that we send the… non-military fighters-" Both Koji and I grinned widely. We knew what they thought of us, and knew what terms they'd like to use to describe us, and we reveled in it. "-out to support the men there, the area where they were is pretty secure for the time being."   
"Yeah, cause o' us," I muttered under my breath. It was true, our unusual fighting style, as opposed to the strict military one all the army soldiers were trained in, was keeping the Kutou moving. The Mt. Reikaku bandits didn't just roll over for anyone, and the enemy was learning that the hard way. "How far away is it?" I called, raising my voice.   
"About a hundred feet to the west, Tasuki-sama."   
I nodded quickly, grabbed Koji, and split for our horses. He stumbled on the first couple of steps but promptly got his feet under him, running with me and leaping when I did to land in our saddles. Our feet found the stirrups and our hands the reins, and we rode off to grab the rest of the guys as I saluted the gathering behind us with my sword.   
I swore I could hear someone mutter something like "Bloodthirsty idiots." I could also swear I heard the clang of Hotohori's sword against the mutterer's helmet.   
Hours later, we were still fighting in the spot we'd been sent to. A few of our men had been injured, but no one was killed, and the wounded had been pulled over to the side until we could take them to Chichiri and the infirmary. I whacked a foot soldier with the flat of my blade, stunning him, then stabbed him quickly through the chest, at least trying to give him a quick death. Koji and I hadn't been unseated once yet.   
"_Oi, Genrou! Ya still alive?!_" Koji slashed away his own opponent and yelled across the noise, grinning at me widely.   
"_Damn right I am! Ya think this is enough t' kill me?!_" I shouted back, taking a quick moment to check out the way things were going around the rest of the battlefield. Something seemed to be missing, something important… "Huh?"   
_Oh shit. Ohhhhh, shit. Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit…FUCK!_   
"_What's wrong?!_" Koji yelled, leaning over to help him hear better.   
My mouth refused to work for a minute as I once again scanned the crowds, looking for the familiar plume… "I don't see Hotohori-sama anywhere…"   
  


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
Time had vanished all together on that field of death. There was no morning, no afternoon, no hours or minutes or seconds, just an endless stream of pain and violence and death and decay. I had never imagined anything like this, hell on earth, pain in the heart of heaven. All my lessons, all learning, all came to naught here, in this place.   
But I had finally understood something as I lay awake the night before, unable to sleep because of the guilt tearing at my heart and the possibility for redemption which was presenting itself to me. I hadn't been able to stop my friends' deaths, but I hadn't started this war. Someone from Kutou had. The one everyone was always talking about, but I had never met in person: Nakago. He had caused this. And he would pay.   
Never mind the fact that he had drugged Tamahome and turned him against us. Never mind the fact that he had played us like puppets from step one. Never mind the fact that at the moment I was nothing more than a superior swordsman. And never mind the fact that he was probably the most powerful man in the world.   
He would pay. And I would be the one to make it happen.   
All through the day I had fought, commanding the troops from horseback as I rode up and down the lines of defense, being kept mostly from the brutality by my generals. But I had broken free of their reins several times and had gone after officers of the Kutou army, who had fallen before me. I wasn't moving like I was used to, the actions weren't as fluid, as clean, or as fast as when I had my powers, but I was still good.   
And they learned that the hard way.   
In all the fighting I always kept my eyes open for that telltale blond hair and spiked blue armor, watching, waiting for him to show himself. But he seemed to be hiding from me; not once did I see anyone match the description I'd heard so often from Miaka and the others.   
I was near Tasuki's portion of the battle, watching him and his friend Koji fight better than almost anyone in my army and deciding to offer them both officer's posts when this was over, when I caught my first glimpse of the man. Out of the corner of my eye I saw blue on white, brilliant against the drab brown of the ground we were fighting on and the rocks forming the background, and as I looked quickly in that direction I saw a lock of blond hair escape the blue helmet.   
It was him. Nakago. I spurred my horse into a quick canter without bothering to tell anyone where I was going, the plume on my helmet snapping in the breeze my speed produced, dodging officers and soldiers alike to follow him. There was also someone in his saddle in front of him, and he was riding away from the fighting, towards the places where grass still grew on the ground, not trampled under horses' hooves and booted feet. And I followed, as silently as I could.   
All noise around me dimmed to nothing, the sky faded to gray as I focused on the clop of his horse's hooves and the glint of his armor. Farther and farther from the armies, the fighting, the bloodshed, so far that even if I had been paying attention the noises would have died to almost nothing. There were still low, jagged cliffs everywhere, but now there was grass carpeting the ground, filling my nose with the scent of growing things I hadn't been able to appreciate recently.   
For a man feared by more than two countries, he was slow to notice I was behind him. When he finally did turn around, his face wore a battle-hardened, cruel, and amused look. He pulled his horse around to face me, and I brought mine to a slow stop, sword held ready in my hand.   
And I was facing my greatest enemy. The man who'd come between us and happiness so many times, to kill us, crush us, conquer us… "You're the general from Kutou… Or, rather, Nakago of the Seiryu no shichiseishi, correct?!"   
His eyes narrowed in a wicked smile and the corners of his mouth turned up just a bit, giving the illusion of mirth on a beautiful face of evil. "None other. You are Saihitei, fourth emperor of Konan." I held my horse in line as it tried to take a step back, watching him warily. "Or would you prefer me to address you as Suzaku no shichiseishi Hotohori?"   
How… How…?   
How did he know that? No one outside the palace knew I was one of Suzaku's chosen, not even my own subjects. It had been the secret guarded the closest of anything I knew, not even being revealed to me until I had taken the throne. There had been attempts on my life for being royalty; if it was known I was a seishi as well they would have been doubled. And one of them might have gotten through.   
"It's admirable that you, the lord of this realm have come to fight for your country. Even if you did come here only to die. If you'd quietly stayed in your palace, you would have lived."   
I could feel my face stiffen, tighten in anger at underestimating me. _No one_ underestimates me and gets away with it. They always find they were dead wrong. My hand tightened unconsciously around the hilt of my sword, getting ready for the fight.   
"I will withdraw my forces here."   
_NANI?!_   
The adrenaline drained out of me as my shattered mind began to wrap itself around the scenario he was describing. His powerful voice was painting a picture of conquest and fighting, but not where we'd thought. He planned to take the army back into Kutou, take control of that land. All we'd done, all we'd suffered… he'd been the cause. And it had been just a diversion to keep the Kutou emperor from suspecting anything.   
And there was another world he'd decided to take as well.   
For his own reasons, for his own gain, he sentenced thousand of people to die, all to overthrow one man. Thousands of soldiers, thousand of civilians who should never have had a part in all this… all for his own reasons, his own ambitions, his own fancies… My rage returned, more powerful than ever, so overwhelming that I could barely speak, couldn't keep the hand holding my sword from shaking violently as I thought of all those innocent people he'd condemned to death.   
And also… his talk of another world. Was it… could it possibly…   
He smiled his cruel, cold smile as he started to turn his horse back to the fighting. "I'll be sure to send your regards to your miko."   
I snapped.   
I lost control, my mind spun off into the unknown of the night sky as images of the girl I'd loved pushed it aside, the girl I'd finally been able to give up if she would be happier that way, and one of my closest friends in the world, the man she loved… They'd vanished weeks ago, leaving behind not a trace but the things she'd brought to this world with her, and the only place they could have gone was back to the home of the miko. And he was… this bastard was… "Miaka…" My voice shook more violently than it had since my infancy, since I'd begun my training as a prince of the realm. There was nothing I wouldn't do to preserve them, preserve the love they'd struggled to share and keep across time and space. "Tamahome… Not those two… I WON'T ALLOW YOU TO COME BETWEEN THOSE TWO!"   
  


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
A blinding flash of rage split my mind and I leapt up from where I knelt, screaming. Helpers rushed to me, asking frantically what was going on, what was wrong, if I needed to lie down and rest, and I pushed them aside with no thought to humanity or decency, screaming my throat sore for a horse. One was finally brought to me and I shoved the boy out of the way, grabbed the reins, and climbed on, then turned its head out of the infirmary and kicked it into a gallop, leaping patients and fires and gods know what else in my rush to get out the gate, get to the battle field, get out, get out, get out, get there, stop him, stop him from doing something insane…   
  


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
The rage ripped through my head and nearly threw me off my horse, and only Koji's quick move was able to prevent me from being run through with a Kutou sword as I righted myself in the saddle. Then an ear splitting, animal-like scream came on the wind to our position, emerging from a voice I never thought could produce anything but rich, mellow tones… royal tones… Without a word, the rage still clouding my mind, Koji and I spun our horses on their hooves and began galloping for the place where I knew my ruler would be, the source of that scream…   
  


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
"You fool." Soi's body draped over his saddle prevented him from drawing his sword to use as defense against my headlong rush, but he didn't need it. He was still in possession of his powers. And even if I had been as well, I couldn't have guarded against what was coming.   
In the air above his free hand a blue spark blazed, grew brighter, stronger, only slightly larger, the power concentrating in one place. I knew what it was, but there was no way in all the hells I could think of that I would stop… the bastard deserved to be taken down, and he would be… _now_… My horse charged blindly forward, seeming to cover the ground between us in so little yet so much time, drawing me closer but at the same time further away. Then a blue barrier erupted in front of me, enclosing him in a protective dome of his power, and I hit it head on, my helmet being knocked off and thrown somewhere far away with the force I hit, my horse running, running, but not able to get any closer…   
I gritted my teeth and steeled my arms and back, praying I would succeed. "Suzaku… GIVE ME STRENGTH!"   
And suddenly, whether through divine interference or my own determination, I was through the barrier and approaching him at a pace too rapid for him to deflect, and my sword was sinking into his shoulder, producing blood as red as anyone else's even if his soul was that of a demon. I pushed it in farther as he stared at me in shock and horror that the little "child emperor" would have the strength to do this to _him… him_ of all people, the most powerful man in the world…   
And the blue spark still hovering above his hand exploded, throwing off light and energy and force and power and Suzaku knew what else, picking me up and throwing me far, far from him, from my horse, my armor crumbling to bits in the air around me, opening thousands of little gashes inside my body, hammering my mind like it was sheet metal, battering my body like the gates of a city under siege.   
And I fell, on the grassy floor that I'd never gotten to appreciate, in the country I hadn't loved enough, hadn't been able to protect, and I knew I would join the friends I hadn't been able to save.   
  


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
Miaka's… voice?   
From… the sky…   
So warm… I wanted to sink into her voice one more time, that voice so full of caring and friendship for everyone, even a sworn enemy, especially for her friends and loved ones, sink into it and lose myself forever in its caress. And from the cloudless, blue sky, rejoicing in color because of the retreat of the Kutou soldiers, raindrops fell, only a couple, landing on my face. Miaka… was crying for me, from her own world…   
She and Tamahome were safe. I smiled a weak smile, thanking Suzaku for that small grace, pressuring my voice to rise to a high enough level so she could hear the news of the withdrawal. If she couldn't come back, it was all right, because she would be happier in her world anyway, in her world… with Tamahome.   
Tamahome. He had to defeat Nakago. He was the strongest of us all, and the only one able to face the Seiryu seishi with any hope of winning. With four of the warriors gone now, he was the last chance we had, for everyone to be happy. And so… So I did what I had to do, and laid that task on him, wishing I could talk to him and hear him promise he would win. But… I knew he would. He and Miaka couldn't be truly happy until he had, and he wouldn't allow anything to stand in the way of that.   
"Hotohori, don't! Don't die! Because… Because… what will Houki do?!"   
Miaka's ragged, pain-filled voice made me wish I was there, wish I could wipe the tears gently from her cheeks, but her words brought another face to mind. A face I'd first seen the day Nuriko had fought Ashitare, and in grief and confusion had dared approach and sweep into a tight hug… only to discover that this time, in fact, it really was a woman. A woman with a wonderful disposition, a perfect sense of humor… a woman I could actually be friends with. We'd talked, after that first meeting, seeing each other often in the course of palace duty, and had grown closer than I could have believed, and when I'd finally found the courage to ask her to marry me she'd said yes without hesitation, because she knew and respected and loved who _I_ was, not just a crown or the man beneath it. And now…   
Now she was carrying my child. My child. _My_ child. I couldn't die… without seeing its face. Miaka insisted that Houki would have a boy that looked exactly like me, but for once I didn't care what it looked like, it would be ours and it would be perfect.   
And as the breath came harder and harder into my lungs I tried to find words to express myself, explain to Miaka all the things she'd taught me, shown me, helped me experience… and I knew the bond between all of us was so close that not even death could break it, our spirits would find some way to remain together, in the next life and beyond, even in death…   
And under my armor I'd put the "picture" she'd taken of us before that fatal trip to Hokkan. Now was the time to take it out. We were all there, all eight of us, happy, alive, healthy, and naïve, with no idea what the future held. But still… we were happy together in this life, we'd be happy together in death and beyond… And if we couldn't be together now, she still had to know… "Be happy… Miaka…"   
"Hotohori? Hotohori…?"   
_I loved you…_ I felt my arm folding slowly to my chest, my fingers still gripping the picture. And I couldn't resist any longer, and slowly closed my eyes, taking my last breath, welcoming the gentle darkness beginning to enfold me… _Be happy…_   
Arigato, Miaka. Arigato, minna.   



	5. Epilogue - Out of the Night...

  
DISCLAIMER: Why do I even bother?   
AUTHOR'S NOTES: The epilogue.   
It's over. It's really over. It's like... wow. I actually _finished_ something. At last.   
I finally got to re-watch the pertinent episodes of the anime that pertain to this story, and it's kinda strange how much I remembered wrong -_-(). So let's just say this is an AU fic, K? It'll be our little secret. ~_~   
Mouse-chan, samuraiheart, this is for you *_~ You've stuck with me, you deserve it.   
  


*************************************************************************************

  
  
Four plots.   
One, two, three, four. Four plots arranged in one neat row, giving no sign as to the condition of the hearts of those making the plots. For all anyone could tell, an impartial observer had simply shoveled out dirt, then shoveled it back in.   
But it was more, oh, so much more to those of us that were there. The graves held our friends, our brothers, our dear comrades to whom we'd had to say good-bye. They had died bravely, valiantly, but the knowledge didn't make it hurt any less. I knew that, eventually, I'd be able to move on, live a day without tears coming to my eye at their memory…   
But that wouldn't happen for a long time.   
  


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
I walked blindly through the grounds, my head in the sky, with my friends. They were gone. Gone.   
And they had no regrets.   
They'd looked so healthy and well and _alive_ when they'd appeared, saving us, saving the miko, saving the world… I'd had to hold myself more in check than ever to keep from rushing to one of them, any one, and embracing them like they'd… well, returned from the dead.   
But they had to leave when our task had finally been accomplished, and the third wish had been used. They'd faded once again to ghost of memories, the only proof of their presence the fact that the blond demon was gone. And I missed them, possibly more than before.   
  


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
It had been so wonderful… seeing them again… Fighting along side them for that brief space of time, feeling whole and _complete_ as I had not since Nuriko's death, since the first of us was gone…   
There had been no time for reunions. The worlds, both of them, were in trouble. We'd put aside personal feelings and supported the miko, supported Tamahome, sealing Seiryu… Chiriko's idea, so smart… But ever since that familiar "Moooouuuu!" had rung through the air there was no doubt I was on my way to healing, even if the second separation had been more painful than the first.   
It would just take time…   
  


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
I remarked idly to myself that seishi still seemed to be drawn together as I walked up slowly behind him, stopping just to his left and gazing quietly at the graves. They were all so different, so unique… like the men in them. I could instantly tell, even without the markers, just who was who… Chiriko first, nearest the water, the little boy so much smarter than any of us, who I'd needed to protect as a little brother. Then Nuriko, the strong man-girl, the one I'd never been able to figure out, but somehow hadn't needed to, his mystique being one of his best characteristics. Then the largest mound, Mitsukake, the most selfless, caring man I'd ever known, even through his stoic front.   
And the newest. Hotohori. That stubborn, headstrong emperor… _You just had to go and get yourself killed. And guess who took Houki's rage._ I still had bruises from that encounter.   
But I couldn't blame him. He was the noblest man I'd ever met, the perfect emperor. He would have made the perfect father…   
"Tasuki no da," my companion said quietly.   
"Hai?"   
"What will you do now?"   
I had no idea. I'd been approached, as had Koji, by more than one member of the imperial council, being offered a position as a commander in the army and the promise that our "dubious pasts" would be forgotten in lieu of our service in a time of need. Koji had flatly refused, saying he couldn't stand all the routine. But in private he'd also given me an option, to return to the Mt. Reikaku bandits and resume my place as leader, with Koji once again my second-in-command.   
Chichiri sighed at my silence and looked up at the clear blue sky, the light breeze making his bangs stir against his forehead. His eye was hidden, as usual, by the fox-face mask. "They offered me an advisor's post, or one in the temple, since I am a monk. But… I don't think I can take either."   
"Why not?" My voice was perfectly serious, heavy. "They're both good positions… you could be one of the most powerful men in the country."   
He slowly lowered his head, and to my great surprise I saw tears trickling out from the sides of the mask that hid all his emotions. "I don't think they'd want me to."   
  


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  
The breeze ruffled his wild hair, making it appear as if it really was just an extension of his flames, and I could hear a child's shout from somewhere outside the garden. I knew my traitor tears were showing, but I didn't dare take off my mask… It was the only thing I had that would keep me from falling apart entirely.   
Healing doesn't happen in a day, or a month, or even a year. It's so much more than that, so much more… complex and convoluted and confusing than simply crying. I would be all right. But not for awhile.   
"I think they'd want you to do what you want to do." Tasuki's voice was rough, scratchy, as if he were trying to stop himself from crying. "I know… If I was there too, I know that's…" He lost his battle, the droplets pouring from the corners of his eyes in silent waterfalls, but he pushed himself on, as if he didn't finish this thought he would never speak again. "I know that's what I'd tell you."   
"Tasuki…" Impetuously, exactly like that time after Miaka and Tamahome had vanished, I put my arms around his shoulders and let him cry. He buried his face in my shoulder and let out a low, animal-like howl that was severely muffled by my kesa. His fingers clutched my sleeves, twisting the fabric so tight my circulation was nearly cut off, but I didn't raise my voice in protest. If he needed to do it, I would let him. If it would help him heal, it was all right.   
My own tears dripped onto the back of his head as he cried, and I felt another pang of grief burn through my heart, this one much older… six years older, to be precise, when my family, including my little brother, were swept away in the devastating flood, where I'd ceased to be Hou Jun… Tasuki was bringing it back, drawing out my brother instincts, and I remembered just how much _younger_ the bandit was than me, how much less experienced with the grief of life…   
Soon he pushed my arms away and stepped back, swiping a quick fist across his eyes, shaking his head and looking at the ground. I knew he was thinking that seeing him cry had lowered my respect for him, but it hadn't. Sometimes it takes more of a man to cry than to seal up feelings inside.   
"Tasuki, what are you going to do now no da?" I asked the question softly.   
He glanced at the graves next to us. His happiness, for now, lay with those men. But hopefully, soon… "They said I could stay, too. Be a commander. And Koji said I could go with them and be the leader again."   
"But Koji-"   
He cut me off with a quick nod. "They left this morning. And of course I didn't go with them."   
"So you want to stay here, then?"   
He glanced at me once, then back at the ground our friends lay in. "I can't take it here. Too many rules, too many things to do…"   
_Too much pain,_ his voice seemed to say in my head.   
"Chichiri… actually…I was kind of wondering…"   
"If you could come with me?" His gaze snapped up at me in momentary surprise, then grew serious again, accepting of the fact that we all knew our fellow seishi so well. "What do you think I'd say to that?"   
He shrugged. "Hopefully 'sure', but…"   
I allowed, just for a moment, a tiny smile to break through the sadness and settle itself on my lips. "Sure." I perfectly matched his cadence, rhythm, and inflection, making him gawk in surprise. At the look on his face I just had to laugh, and reached out to ruffle his already-messy hair. "You can come. It'll be good to not be lonely on the road anymore no da. Who knows, maybe you'll even decide to take it up on your own…"   
"Being a _monk?_ Hell no."   
"See? You're too quick to judge, _someone_ has to keep your hot head in line, might as well be me."   
"Are we gonna start _that_ again?"   
"At least you're talking mostly correctly now."   
"What was wrong with the way I talked before?!"   
"Most people couldn't _understand_ it…"   
As we walked away from the pool, bickering like the brothers we were in spirit, I could almost swear I heard, somewhere behind us, the faint, laughing voices of our fellow seishi.   
  


~~~OWARI~~~

  
  


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AUTHOR'S NOTES II: This is it... the last part of the first multi-part fic I've ever finished. I'm starting to get all sappy and sentimental, remembering everything this story's brought me and all the firsts that happened because of this story, but I won't bore you all with them. Just a few. ~_~   
This story caused me and Mouse-chan (Purple Mouse, maybe you've read something of hers? ~_~) to strike up a correspondance... you can probably guess the results of all that. This was my first angsty thing (although definitely not the last). Of course, it's the first one I've FINISHED. It's pretty big for me.   
Thank you thank you everyone who reviewed. It means so much to me when people appreciate something I've poured my heart into, like this. You all are the nicest people imaginable.   


Kaze-chan's Final Thoughts ~_~

  
Unofficial Official Soundtrack: Itooshi Hito no Tameni (the opening theme song), slow version   
Kaze-chan's Favorite Line: "And _just_ when we get you to start talking like a _normal_ person, your friends show up and you revert." - Chichiri to Tasuki, in chapter 4. What was _your_ favorite line? ~_~ 


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